Endless Worlds
by Snarkstalker
Summary: Become a Reaper, or destroy civilization? Take away the galaxy's diversity, or die as a galaxy, united but diverse? Could Shepard even trust this 'Catalyst? An attempt at taking another option has Shepard ending up in Thedas, in Kirkwall. Not sure if it could be considered 'M' rated yet, but I'm sure it will be when I'm done. Inspired by totallybursar's "Stars Fade." Read that.
1. Arrival

Chapter One - Arrival

 _This_ , Shepard thought, _This is why you do not send a soldier with a talent for blowing shit up to operate experimental tech that could blow up the galaxy._

But the job had to be done, and she'd always been known to do whatever it takes. It had been her lifelong motto, instilled by her parents from an early age. The Alliance had heroes aplenty, it needed people who got shit done.

Nevertheless, it seemed wrong, somehow, that these were her choices. Destroy civilization along with the Reapers, or become one. Take diversity from the galaxy she'd worked so hard to unify in spite of differences, or die as a united galaxy. Somehow, some way, there had to be another choice. And it had to be made fast. The apparition - the Catalyst - stared at her expectantly.

This thing was behind the Reapers. Could she trust it - or was there another option that it wasn't telling her about?

It was designed to stop the war between organic and synthetic life, and had made the choice to eradicate both. She thought the Catalyst must be flawed, somehow, broken, but Legion - still a presence in her mind, for all that he had sacrificed himself - corrected her. _Three is greater than two. Two is greater than one._

The Geth heretics hadn't been wrong - only misinformed.

Legion... Legion had pointed out how the Reapers had guided the galaxy's technological advancement. The Catalyst suggested that if peace were possible, it would be preferable, but its creations, the Reapers, ensured that technology always lead toward the same end. It could not be trusted - it was trying to force her to continue the cycle as much as it could. It would see the galaxy in ruins and all synthetics exterminated, if it couldn't have the organics. Or it would see the Reapers dominant - whether Shepard controlled them or the galaxy became part of them...Legion had said that he couldn't fathom a single Reaper thought - Shepard was strong, mentally, but even Leviathan was more than she could handle. Legion was used to hive minds... Interfacing with the Reapers would destroy her mind, and synthesis - what if that just put the galaxy under Reaper control? Galaxy wide indoctrination.

No, there had to be a way to destroy the Reapers and nothing else. The Catalyst had indicated that she'd need to blow open a part of the Crucible to destroy the Reapers - Shepard knew a little about engineering, and the Alliance doesn't build machines that need to be shot to function. The panel - indicated to control the Reapers - that was the key to isolating them. She wouldn't be controlling all the technology in the galaxy, after all.

With a glare at the Catalyst - damn it for using that face just to fuck with her! - Shepard approached the console. She could sense the Catalyst's anticipation, somehow.

"You need only touch it, really," it said, in its echoing voice. Her voice, a boy's voice, a voice she didn't recognize, but felt like she should...

"I doubt the Alliance created a machine this powerful without making the control a little finer," Shepard said, as she extended her hand toward the console. Energy bound her to it almost instantly, jarring her teeth - she could feel herself burning out, didn't mind, whatever it takes, but not before she beat these assholes.

She asserted her will, and could sense them, the Reapers, on the other side of the excruciating pain that was her entire being. Now to figure out where the explode button was on this thing...but there was something wrong. The console seemed to be on the frits - it couldn't only be the energy burning in her eyes - and as she glanced aside, she could see the boy, shouting something at her and doing something to the console. It seemed angry. Shit, it'll stop her any way it can.

Shepard smiled. There was one way it couldn't stop her. Would it work? _Here's to hoping..._

One hand on the console, keeping her connected to the Reapers, she raised her pistol in the other, and aimed through the apparition's head - was she on her knees? When had that happened? - at the portion of the Crucible it had told her to blow up.

The look of shock on the boy's face as she pulled the trigger gave her more satisfaction than she'd ever have imagined she'd get from shooting at a child, and as the Crucible exploded - her specialty, after all - Shepard embraced eternity, as Liara had bid her do so many times before.

Nothing hurt as much as being spaced - that's what she told anyone and everyone who asked. She'd have to revise that statement. She didn't know where she was, but her...everything...was on fire. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelid felt rough moving across her eyes, and the glare almost blinded her.

She couldn't just lay here, though. Had to make contact with...anyone.

She called on all the strength she could muster, braced herself, and flopped over onto her stomach.

Dust slipped into the cuts on her face and stung her cracked lips, blew away from her nose with her heavy, ragged breaths. The air hurt her lungs, and her ribs felt like they'd barely survived the impact of rolling over. This was bad.

Still, she had to push on. And so she did. Ignoring complaints from every muscle she had, she pushed herself up on her forearms and knees, raising her head out of the dirt, and paused for a breath.

 _Take stock, soldier,_ she ordered herself. _Let's see... armor?_ She focused on her chest, moving rapidly from exertion, and didn't feel the familiar weight of her hard suit pressing against it. In fact, the bodysuit she wore under her armor seems to have almost evaporated. She had nothing but a few rags on her. _Weapon?_ Nothing. Maybe it was laying around. She'd look when she was brave enough to open her eyes again. _Biotics?_ She tried to flare up, the typical biotic display, and her nervous system almost tore its way out of her body. _Not right now, then... Omni-tool?_ Blindly she activated the piece of tech on her wrist, and would have breathed a sigh of relief if she had the breath to spare. She could feel it working, she could see the familiar orange glow through her eyelids. It was working.

 _I wonder if there's a medigel dispenser nearby?_

Her success with the omni-tool had bolstered her courage, and Shepard opened her eyes quickly, biting her cheeks against the pain, and waited for her eyes to adjust. It took unusually long, but when she could see, she made a quick scan of her surroundings. Sunset, a few buildings seemingly made of mud, wood and stone. A slum, probably, on a particularly undeveloped world. She was about to push herself further upwards - whatever toll that took on her battered body - when she saw a man dressed in the strangest outfit she'd ever seen step around the corner, recoil at the sight of her, then aim a kick directly at her ribs.

She could feel a few of them break, not even her reinforced bones able to withstand all she'd recently been through. The man shouted something at her in a language she didn't understand. That's odd. All human languages had been recorded for ages. Was her translator broken? Probably. Then the man looked up, and an exasperated look crossed his face, which quickly turned to fear.

Shepard could feel herself losing consciousness, but before she did she allowed her head to roll limply in the direction the man was looking. She saw four people - two women, two men - running straight toward her attacker. One man was glowing blue - a biotic - but was pointing a walking stick at the man who had kicked her, and somehow seemed to fire an incendiary blast from it.

 _Am I delirious? I must be,_ she thought. The women both had long knives, the remaining man a sword. A very large sword. That was it. She was delirious.

Finally, unconsciousness claimed her, and Shepard welcomed the blackness.

Hawke watched Anders work quietly - he had ordered her not to say anything pithy, sarcastic, or whimsical while he was trying to save this woman's life, and this business was far too serious to actually say anything that did not fall into one of those categories. The woman fascinated Hawke - mainly because of the glowing bits of metal that had been visible under her skin until Anders covered them up again.

"...rather amazing, really," Anders said to no-one in particular, "They seem to be helping to stabilize her, and to be keeping her in one piece. Remarkable. I've never thought... Enchanted metal under the skin, to heal? How do they stop the lyrium from poisoning her blood?"

"Maybe she's part dwarf," Varric said, leaning against the doorway. Hawke grinned at him - she'd been dying to say that - and he winked at her in return. Anders glared at them both.

"You, Varric, know that lyrium will kill even a lifelong resident of Orzammar if enough gets into the blood. At the least it would drive the dwarf crazy. Besides, she's rather tall, don't you think?"

"How dare you discriminate against her based on height? And who's to say she isn't crazy? We found her mostly naked and unarmed in Lowtown. At dusk. Lyrium poisoning seems to be a handy explanation."

"Varric has a point," Hawke said, head cocked, "I-"

"I told you - none of that smart mouth of yours, I need to concentrate!"

"I wasn't going to..." Hawke trailed off, admiring Ander's glare. She took a certain pride in getting under the mage's skin.

"She seems to be all healed to me," Varric said. "Rather well healed. Nice job, Blondie."

"I..." Anders seemed mollified, "I have rather outdone myself, haven't I?"

"Did you make her breasts larger?" Isabela shouted from the other room. She'd been banished by Anders for ogling the victim. Fenris, naturally, had stalked off long before they reached Anders' clinic. He hated to see mages at work.

Anders ignored Isabela.

"She's been healed to the best of my ability, but there's something about her...something that seems to interfere with my magic. She'll need a lot of rest, a lot of food, and a lot less company for the next few days."

"And you'll need much more coin," Hawke said, "And if you even think about turning me away this time I shall stab you. Starve yourself if you like, but I'm not putting up with Isabela if you let this beauty starve to death just for your pride."

"That's my girl," Isabela said, sauntering through the door, "But I do believe we have been dismissed?"

"Let's go, 'Bela," Hawke agreed, "Varric. I need a stiff one."

"And a drink!" Isabela added, with a chuckle.

Three days since she'd first woken up in that street, and Shepard still couldn't make much sense of what was going on. She seemed mostly healed - her biotics were still somewhat fuzzy, but otherwise she was in acceptable shape - so there had to be medigel somewhere, yet this clinic seemed primitive. She'd run a diagnostic on her translator through her omni-tool, and the diagnostic had confirmed that the translator was in perfect order - which only added confusion to the excited babbling and gestures of the man - the biotic who had been there every time she woke up, from that first time in the streets. It was entirely unintelligible. Her omni-tool detected no extranet service, so it could not pinpoint her location - but anywhere without extranet access wouldn't be on any galaxy map, anyway.

All she knew for certain was that this man had healed her - the place, while primitive, had the trappings of a clinic, and she'd seen grievously injured people brought to him and leaving in perfect shape, with him looking exhausted. He'd never let her be nearby when he worked, though. Typical doctor, really. If only she could get the message across that she had some basic medical training - many of the injuries seemed to be from fights, and she knew well how to treat those.

He'd provided her with food and shelter, though, as well as clothes. Once they'd ascertained that they could not understand each other at all, he'd resorted to gestures, and had shown her the remains of her body suit, which frankly could barely cover half her torso if it had been all one piece. It hadn't. From what she understood, there'd been no need to cut it from her because it had fallen apart while they carried her.

'They' were the man's companions. A rather vertically challenged man who reminded her of a more masculine Joker, a tall woman with Samantha Traynor's colouring, a body and posture that reminded her of Morinth, and a voice that might put dirty thoughts into EDI's head, and lastly a woman who Shepard had immediately designated as their leader. A kindred spirit. The woman seemed to grin far more than she scowled, of course, and had this way of cocking her head before her tone turned sarcastic - sarcasm, it seemed, was universal - but underneath that Shepard sensed steel. This woman would smile as she ripped you apart. Shepard could respect that.

Of the man with the sword there had been no sign. Shepard had tried asking after him, miming the large blade he'd held in a low guard, but that had raised her healer's eyebrow and sent the two women into a fit of giggles. She needed to learn their language. To that end she'd set the omni-tool to record every word said, and every night, before she slept, she fed the new data into her translator for analysis. Once enough information had been gained to decode the language, she could start learning, even in her sleep.

She'd also been keeping a journal.

"I never understood Javik's distaste," she muttered into her omni-tool, "'These primitives' this, 'In _my_ cycle' that, when we seemed to function excellently, but now I understand. These prim... people function. They've adapted to life with their simplistic surroundings, yet I know from experience how much better everything could be. If only I could get access to the healing tech the biotic must be using... Perhaps that could help me figure out how to contact the Alliance. After all, these humans seem to have had no contact for centuries, but if the tech is still working, that means supplies of medigel and regular maintenance. Perhaps this world is a secret experiment? One can only hope."

She let the omni-tool blink out and allowed her eyes to drift back into focus, to see the man staring mystified at her. He pointed at her hand where the omni-tool had been, and made a questioning face. Guessing at his meaning, Shepard brought the omni-tool back up, cycled through her recordings and played the most recent.

 _Day three,_ her voice began, and the man coughed, staring in amazement. Shepard could only grin, but it worried her somewhat. How did he apply medigel to his patients if he didn't know how an omni-tool worked? It made no sense.

Nothing in this world made sense to her.

She wished she could go home...

"Anders, I need you..." Hawke said in a breathy tone as she stepped into his clinic. She struck a pose - hip thrust out, sultry grin on her face, but they'd played this game before, and Anders only rolled his eyes.

"Hawke, I have an apparently brain damaged patient with magic I've never seen before on my hands. I can't go running after you on your next killing spree. What if someone breaks in and they hurt each other?"

"I'm breaking into the old family home to see if there's enough of value to make up for what your patient is costing me. I'm still trying to fund an expedition into the Deep Roads, you know. We could use you."

"Breaking and entering is Isabela's strong suit, not mine."

"Frying the balls off anyone standing in our way is your strong suit, not Isabela's. That's why I'm taking you both."

"What about Bethany? Why don't you take her? It's your family home."

"I am taking her," Hawke said, exasperated.

"Well, why in the fade would you need two mages for a robbery?"

"We-ell..." Hawke smiled, "We're entering through the basement, and the entrance is close to your clinic, and Varric is busy with family things, and Aveline with guard things, and Fenris with broody things, and you know I always try to take enough backup in case we get stabbed, and..."

"And I'm your last choice. Literally your last choice," Anders scoffed.

"Why are you sounding so offended? You were just mad that I was trying to steal you away from your new plaything!"

"Well, I..." Anders began...

"...still think you could have brought the elf," he muttered. There was no arguing with Hawke, and after some heated debate and a few attempts at getting a message across to his patient, Anders had grudgingly relented. He was standing guard at the entrance of the crawlspace while Hawke pretended not to ogle Isabela's behind as the latter shimmied into the whole, and Bethany, sweet girl, pretended not to notice, though the blush gave her away.

"I don't like him," Bethany said, "Somehow I'd rather have a templar at my back. They say the king of Ferelden used to be a Templar, and he's well known for being jolly, funny and loyal to a fault."

"He used to be a Gray Warden," Anders said, "He was only trained as a Templar."

"The point," Bethany said, "Is that Fenris makes me think I should always have a rather nasty spell handy."

"Now, no need to be mean, sister," Hawke said, as Isabela called all clear from the other side of their impromptu entrance, "Fenris is only as psychotic as the rest of us. The fact that he directs that at you is purely coincidental."

"Such protective instincts you have, sweet sister," Bethany muttered, as she clambered into the hole, "I'll remember this the next time you want me to make a spider explode."

"Get on with it," Hawke slapped her sister's thigh playfully, before turning toward Anders and, in a rather terrifying turn, looked serious.

"My sister is going in there with me," Hawke said, "Because not taking her along when I go to explore our old home would not be fair. But this isn't smuggling, this is breaking into a house in Hightown. I couldn't bring a guard along, could I? So Aveline's out. Beth doesn't feel safe with Fenris, so he's out. And while Varric is great at this sort of thing, he is genuinely busy. I'll be taken by the taint before I let harm come to my sister, so you're coming along. Okay?"

She'd been serious. That was more terrifying than all the times she'd threatened to stab him, for all that he knew she meant those threats even when she was grinning.

"Okay," he said. As simple as that.

Mages, thieves... Hawke was sure some of these men were killers for hire! What were they doing in her family home?

"Gamlen," she grunted, as she drove a dagger high under a man's sternum, "Is going to pay for this."

She yanked the blade free, and Bethany made a disgusted face at the sound, even as she herself tore a man's face to shreds with her staff, covered in sharp little icicles.

"I doubt he can afford to pay for anything, really."

"That's what he's going to pay for," Hawke muttered, surveying the carnage. There had indeed been a mage, who had managed to throw her and Isabela cleanly across the room as they entered, but Anders had quickly battered him with fire until he raised a magical shield, and Isabela had stuck his back full of holes as soon as the shield had gone down. He had the most to loot. A few pieces of silver here, a few there... it added up. The fifty sovereigns she needed was drawing ever closer.

"Look," Bethany shouted, form the other end of the room, "It's mother!"

"Now I don't get to surprise you with it," Hawke said, looking at the portrait unceremoniously dumped in a corner. Mother really had looked quite a bit like Bethany, once. Quite beautiful.

"Aaaand victory!" Isabela shouted in the distance. Hawke followed the voice, and saw her favourite pirate with her favorite toy - a rather large purse of coins.

"Got to be ten sovereigns," Isabela said, "If I had a hat, I'd eat it if this were less."

"What will you eat instead?" Hawke asked, keeping an eye on her sister. She knew the pirate well enough to know where this would go.

"Now, sweet thing... If you don't know, we should probably have a discussion soon."

Sure enough, Bethany's cheeks flared, but Hawke stifled her laugh. They weren't done yet.

"Any sign of a will?"

"What, this old thing? Well, you can have it, I'll take the gold."

"'Bela!" Bethany complained. Hawke just grinned. Teasing her sister was really just too easy.

Shepard was at her wits end.

As soon as the doctor - if that's what he was - had left she'd ransacked the place for any sign of advanced medical equipment. There had been nothing. He could not have an omni-tool, not even a prototype - medigel capabilities had been a recent addition. And there was no way to heal the way he did without medigel. Her other options seemed limited to a different form of portable medigel dispenser, but either that would be too obvious to miss, or too experimental for him to not know about the galactic community - and omni-tools, and such. Could he be playing her? Pretending amazement?

Shepard doubted it, but it was her only option.

The frustration was unbearable.

Normally she'd flare up her biotics - that always calmed her down a little - but while it was certainly coming back, it hurt like a bitch and made her bring up her decidedly sparse meals if she tried. She supposed getting blown up could do that...

The explosion. She didn't even want to think about how she survived.

"Priorities, soldier," she commanded herself. She was in an unknown area, and didn't understand a word anyone was saying. She needed to communicate, and the somewhat small sample size the clinic was providing limited her translator. She needed to get out.

Without a second thought, she shrugged into the woven leather coat the woman - the leader - had presented to her on a visit. They seemed almost equally proportioned, and the little breathing room the other woman's clothing gave Shepard didn't bother her much - the leather was stuffy, not something she was used to.

She activated her omni-tool in a passive mode - a barely visible glow on her wrist - and strolled out into the streets. People surrounded her, dirty and seeming miserable. She saw children looking sad, parents looking angry, women - undoubtedly prostitutes - calling at passersby, and more than anything else, curious glances at her wrist. These people didn't miss much - they survived on their wits. More and more, they seemed to be passing nearby her, and for all that the translation software must have been gathering mountains of data, their fingers were scrabbling at her wrist as they brushed past, and she was beginning to think it was a bad idea.

Just as she made up her mind to turn around, she came to a thankfully clear alley. Shepard slipped in, leaned against a corner, and breathed deep.

Growing up on ships didn't leave you particularly antisocial, and the Alliance military took great pleasure in breaking you of any sense of personal space, but these streets, these desperate people...

 _Could this be an Alliance experiment? Would they let people - the people I died to protect - suffer like this?_

 _What else could it be?_

Salarian, of course, but even the Salarians would have their hands full abducting enough people to populate even these slums. And they would control the situation better. What could it be?

Her musings were interrupted when a group of men, armed with all manner of sharp pieces of metal, stepped into the alley's entrance. Shepard's senses immediately snapped to full alert. One of them gestured at her wrist with a leer, and seemed to be expecting some response. Shepard brought the omni-tool to her other hand, and toggled it off. The leer turned into a scowl.

 _Scowl right back,_ she told herself. She'd ended a centuries long conflict by shouting it down. This man couldn't dare attack her.

Then again, there she'd been Commander Shepard, N7, Spectre and the savior of the Citadel, curer of the genophage, and all around legend. She'd been backed by Archangel, whose name was still only spoken in whispers on Omega, and a personal friend of Aria T'loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega and the only person who dared say Archangel's name with a sneer.

Here she was a woman wearing a somewhat too large leather jacket.

The man just laughed bitterly, and swung steel at her head, his companions circling around her back.

Without even thinking, Shepard punched up her tech armor and paired omni-blades, and watched her attacker's expression as the sword jarred in his hand upon meeting the barrier, before slipping through slowly and harmlessly. The faster an object, the greater the resistance, the reasoning being anything that made it through her kinetic barriers and tech armour would be stopped by her hard suit. As matters stood, the armor gave her enough time to dodge aside, only a small cut opening in the leather coat she was wearing, and she parried the return swing with her considerably denser omni-blade. The next flick of her wrist disemboweled her attacker, breaking straight through the leather shield he'd been holding in front of his chest. Sheppard grinned - the adrenaline... She hadn't felt this since her 'dance' with James Vega, the thrill of true, one on one combat, no guns, just skill.

Shepard scythed her blades out as she spun around, just in time to catch a dagger aimed at what had been her spine. Her turn allowed the blade to slip harmlessly off the leather, which it caught at an angle, and she filed the information away for future use. It was no hard suit, but the coat was tougher than she'd thought.

Her wild swing had caught one attacker's face, opening a gash beneath his eye that had sheared cleanly through even his cheekbone. Still, he tried to stick a knife in her face in retaliation, and Shepard batted it aside. She was about to take off his head in one clean sweep, but his friend dropped something at their feet, and suddenly she was coughing, her eyes stinging. She couldn't see a thing.

Disoriented, an impact against her back spun her around, but the blurry shape she could make out was that of the biotic, and a younger girl, similarly carrying a staff, who seemed to likewise be biotic, launching a flare of bright energy at the other attacker. The man dropped, and Shepard was about to relax, but more men stepped from the shadows, metal shining in the dark. Two of them dropped immediately, wreathed in clouds of smoke identical to the one that had disoriented her, and only then did she notice the other two women, the dark skinned one and the leader.

There seemed to be no end to attackers, though. At first Shepard tried to keep track of everyone like she would have with her squad, but this was so much more chaotic than the battles she was used to. She lost herself in the rhythm; cryo blast - one of the biotics would always follow up with an incendiary blast from those staves of theirs - and electric shocks to disable, a pivot to allow a blade to glance away, and a heavy swing from an omni-blade. She'd never used the blades for such a prolonged time. It felt good.

At long last, only one man remained. His eyes darted between the five of them, and he ran. Shepard hit him with another shock, burning his nervous system almost as badly as she herself had been burned, at the same time as the leader leapt forward - she was incredibly agile, and drove a blade up into the man's back.

A few glances either way, confirming that no more were incoming, and Shepard let her armor and blades wink out. She gave the healer her best winning smile.

He seemed rather unimpressed.

The healer and the leader had ranted and raved at each other for hours on end once they reached the clinic, until the young girl had pointed at Shepard and said something rather quiet. Shepard supposed she'd suggested they check their patient for damage - she was sure of it - as the healer's face immediately softened, and he stepped up to her, and put a hand on her head. Shepard felt something electric flare and cause the implants under her skin to go into overdrive, but she saw no glow of an omni-tool, nothing to suggest that the man had run any kind of diagnostic at all. Nevertheless, his hand immediately probed at her back, where she'd been hit in the fight. Shepard had a bruise - she knew from her own diagnostic - but no lasting damage. The man seemed to confirm as much, then glared at their leader, who glared right back and stalked off without a word, the other two women trailing behind.

Shepard felt bad. A little. She'd caused so much discord. But her translator had gotten more information in those few hours than all the time she'd been here so far, and that was worth it.

As the biotic sank into a chair, brushing his hand somberly over his face, he stared at her.

Taking a chance, Shepard called up the translation software on her omni-tool, and did a quick search. Yes.

She played the audio file twice - only on her earpiece, not aloud - and tried it once in her head, before putting on her most sheepish face and muttering "Sorry."

The look on his face was priceless.

A week had passed, and Shepard had been out into the town a few more times under Anders' supervision - she'd learned his name, now - and her translator had been working overtime. So had Shepard's mind. The translator was learning their language, but they didn't have translators of their own, so she actually needed to learn their language herself.

Strangely, once she'd gotten past the initial barriers, the language had started to seem like a very mutated English dialect.

The visits helped - the young biotic girl visited often, and seemed to be very curious. She also seemed to be very, very smart - reminded Shepard a little of Liara, in some ways - and they talked a lot. Shepard had decided to keep her origins to herself for the moment, and claimed amnesia, but there was a lot else to talk about. The girl insisted her biotics were magical abilities, and after a few demonstration Shepard could see how someone could believe so. She was able to generate fire, ice and electricity, barriers and plasma blasts... a massive variety of effects, but few of the ones Shepard was familiar with. No warp fields, no pull or push abilities, though she seemed to indicate that these last two were not unheard of, just not her specialty. Shepard had begun to suspect the experiment was something Cerberus had set up - similar to Jack's experiment, but less cruel. An attempt to advance biotic abilities in humans. Javik had once claimed that the Protheans had manipulated Asari DNA to give them biotics, and this seemed to be something similar - expanding the range of biotic effects.

The girl in turn was very interested in Shepard's omni-tool and its various applications. Shepard had, one day, lined up a few targets - bottles - on a crumbling wall and launched cryo blasts at them. The girl had squeaked in fear and glanced around as if daring anyone to have noticed, but in her halting manner Shepard had calmed the girl and convinced her to blow the frozen bottles up. Soon they'd developed a pattern, and were working together almost as well as Shepard and Liara had - Shepard would lob a lift grenade, and Liara would warp whoever survived.

Another week passed, and Shepard's mastery of the local dialect was improving dramatically. She'd learned that biotics on this world were referred to as 'mages' - and treated as outcasts even more than they were in Turian society. There was a group dedicated to controlling them, and Shepard took an immediate disliking to them - these Templars.

There was also a new addition to the group. A girl who looked not much older than Shepard's new young friend - Bethany, she'd said - and who reminded Shepard of Tali. The way she associated almost everyone in the group with her old crew was beginning to worry Shepard.

This Merril, had large eyes, sharp ears, and was also biotic, though perhaps she also had some strange tech implants. Shepard had seen her speak to plants - and she'd seen the plants react. Tech based on the Thorian? Cerberus...

Shepard had a lot of theories, and she was itching to get out and explore beyond the dusty streets that Anders wandered with her. She'd come to the conclusion that searching within the clinic was futile - if she were to get back to the Normandy, she'd have to find her tech somewhere else. Her chance came - naturally - in the form of the group's leader.

"Anders..."

"Oh for the love of - Hawke, don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I'm going into the Deep Roads soon, Anders," Hawke said, leaning against a wall and watching Anders shave. He'd nicked himself, startled by Hawke, and was glaring sourly into his little mirror. Absently Shepard wondered if he'd waste some medigel on the little cut, but it was a vain hope. Of course he'd conserve every drop.

"Good luck," he said, "Don't die."

"I won't," Hawke said, "Because I will have a Gray Warden with me."

"Just keep him - or her - away from me, then."

"I meant you," Hawke went on, her tone teasing, " How could I enter into the bowels of the earth without my favourite Warden to make sure I don't enter the bowels of a genlock?"

Anders sighed.

"I've got a patient, Hawke."

"I'm healed up pretty well," Shepard said. Like every time Shepard spoke, the other woman, Hawke, looked at her like she were some exotic animal.

"You're a healer now, are you?" Anders asked.

"As a matter of fact, I am," Shepard said. "A combat medic. Look, if you're so worried about me, take me along."

"Brilliant idea!" Hawke exclaimed just as Anders said "Absolutely not!"

"Anders, you've seen her fight," Hawke said, "She's got some interesting magic. And she fights as well as any soldier I've ever seen."

"I am a soldier, in fact."

"See?" Hawke said, as if that settled it.

"I thought you just said you were a healer?" Anders demanded, though, but Shepard was ready.

"I thought Hawke said you were a...Gray Warden?...whatever that is. You're a healer. I'm a soldier trained to make sure other soldiers make it home."

"And we do want to come home, Anders, but if you don't come, and she doesn't come, how will we ever survive?"

Hawke was putting on a show - she was more dramatic than Shepard by far - but it seemed to be working.

"And if I take her," Hawke added before Anders could say anything, "I won't have to take Fenris. Her magic armour and blades certainly seemed to outclass anything he's got. Except for the fisting thing."

"You talk to Isabela far too much," Anders said, but his voice seemed resigned. Shepard recognized the signs. Nobody resisted Hawke. She was beginning to like this woman.

"Do you really not know what Gray Wardens are?" Hawke asked out of the blue, and both her attention and Anders' fixated on Shepard.

"Perhaps I do know, but only in my own language?"

"Wardens are a group of warriors dedicated to killing darkspawn under the control of demons. What would you call that?"

"Religious fanatics," Shepard said in English, but continued, "I'm not sure we have any of those."

"Everywhere on Thedas has Wardens," Anders said.

"I'm not from here."

"You never did tell us where you came from," Hawke said, dragging a chair close and staring with a patient smirk. Shepard chose her next words carefully, thankful for her many trips through the streets - her translator had made a lot of progress, and it's hard to be evasive with a limited vocabulary."

"My ship was involved in a great battle," No need to share the nature - if some people here knew about advanced technology, that still didn't say why and how, and she couldn't risk upsetting an unknown force, "And I was caught in a powerful explosion. I woke up here - I never even knew we were near your...Thedas."

"Well," Hawke said, "Another sailor. And a soldier. And a healer. And tough enough to explode without dying. I think she's coming along whether you like it or not, Anders, so you might as well."

"Fine..." Anders muttered, "But we'd better avoid any other Wardens down there."


	2. Lonely Roads

Chapter Two - Lonely Roads

It was Shepard's first trip outside the slums, and she couldn't help but stare. Massive stone structures, not quite what you'd see on the Citadel or Illium, but with an old, steady charm, were everywhere. She couldn't comprehend how something like this could be part of the same city where the slums had to be patched with mud after it rained.

She was travelling with the whole crew - Isabela, the dark-skinned beauty, Merril with her big, innocent face, Fenris, who looked surly... Shepard wondered if that was his default expression, or if he was just mad that she was apparently taking his place in this outing.

"Bartrand," Hawke said as they approached a short man who, in spite of genetics and build seemed to resemble Fenris' scowling face more closely than his brother Varric's.

"You brought too many," the short man said by way of greeting, "I'll take you, the Warden... One more. That's what you get."

Shepard took an instant dislike to him. Another arbitrary limitation to a group's size. Nothing had ever been as great as the time she and the entire Normandy crew stormed an enemy base. All hands on deck indeed.

"Two," Hawke shot back with a grin.

"One. We have the resources for one more."

"Bartrand," Hawke said, bending down to look him in the eye, "I killed a rather large amount of people to get the fifty sovereigns you wanted so that I could get in on this expedition. That's fifty sovereigns more than you really needed. You'd be surprised how easy it is to thin the criminal population of Lowtown if you need the coin. I'm sure some of that can go toward bringing one more friend along."

It was a thing of beauty, really. Shepard had to admire this Hawke. Her grin had not changed one bit since she arrived, but was now as psychotic as a Krogan's. Shepard would rather French kiss a shark than go up against someone grinning at her like that.

The dwarf seemed to agree, puffing through his mustache, and muttering something to the effect of 'of course' while vigorously mopping at his brow.

"Wonderful! Sister, Shepard, you two ready to go?"

"I... What?" Bethany said, shocked.

"Well, I couldn't leave you to the Templars, could I?"

"I can avoid them without your help."

"You couldn't leave me to the Darkspawn, could you?" Hawke changed tactics.

"That's fighting dirty."

Still, Bethany looked resigned, and hoisted the pack she had ready over her shoulder.

After a few brief goodbyes - a more than friendly hug from Isabela and a cold shoulder treatment from Fenris, a stiff handshake from Aveline and some incoherent babbling from Merril, they set out. The first few steps outside the city crushed Shepard's hopes - there were no signs of civilization anywhere; as far as the eye could see there was wilderness, unpaved dirt roads air and water free of pollution - but this was her best opportunity. They'd have to see what happened.

"These Deep Roads are aptly named," Hawke remarked, on their fifth day of stumbling through the filthy tunnels. Bartrand had said their goal was a week beneath the surface, but she'd never really believed him. She knew the Deep Roads had to be deep - deep enough to hide darkspawn and archdemons and entire dwarven cities - but she'd never really been able to wrap her head around it.

"When this is all over," she added, "I'm going to bathe for a week."

"You come home most nights covered in blood - and one night fish from that warehouse on the docks - and this is what puts you off?" Bethany asked.

"Well, the fish was worse than this, I'll admit..."

Hawke bantered with her sister some more, but she kept her eyes on Shepard. The woman had kept pace with them easily, and her strange magic had provided them with a fantastic beam of light that far outclassed the torches - and even their bonfires when camping. Hawke had at first questioned the woman's ability to sustain such magic for long, but it seemed her energy was without limit. Even Merril's rock armor eventually had to be released.

But Shepard's magic isn't why Hawke kept an eye on her. Every so often, the woman would raise her hand and the glowing apparition would show up, and she'd stare at it for a few seconds, looking disappointed. Hawke had snuck up behind her to glance over her shoulder once - it was a map. A map of where they'd been, and even some places they hadn't reached yet, and always with various strange symbols. Hawke had matched one up with a lyrium vein. Shepard was somehow surveying the area with magic, and was disappointed with the results. She was searching for something.

"...there's no way we could-" Hawke's mouth said, still bantering with Bethany in spite of her mind being nowhere nearby, when she almost tripped over a dwarf that had held still right in front of her, bringing her back to the present. They'd stopped. Strange - it didn't feel like they'd traveled as far as usual before camping.

"Sorry," Hawke said absently, making her way forward to where Bartrand, Anders and Shepard were listening to something one of their scouts was saying. Shepard had been asked to stay at the head of the group when the others had noticed her light. Anders had refused to leave her side.

Bartrand was twiddling with his mustache when she approached, and then raised his fist as if to strike the scout. The next instant, the dwarf was dangling in the air, held by the arm apparently effortlessly in Shepard's right hand.

"He's doing his job," Shepard said, and the orange glow beneath her skin seemed to flare up for an instant.

"Exciting," Hawke said, stepping up beside Shepard as Bartrand swore and threatened her. The woman must be as deceptively strong as Fenris - Hawke had once tried to lift Varric, so they could break into a warehouse through the window, and failed miserably.

"Why are we trying to smack messengers?"

"Nug humping blighter! He's just a casteless, let me go!"

"And you're a surfacer as far as Orzammar is concerned, Bartrand, so time to let go of your prejudice, " Varric said.

"Anders, Shepard, mind filling me in? I'm not sure Bartrand's foul language was meant for my sister's innocent ears."

"The path is blocked," Anders said distractedly, eyeing Shepard, "By the time they're done digging it out, we might just have a new blight on our hands."

"Now, Bartrand, aren't you glad that one of your partners is particularly good at scouting areas and killing whatever prevents her from doing so? And he also brought Hawke along," Varric said, and easily evaded a half-hearted kick from Hawke.

"Nug humping... Andraste's tits, human, are you going to let me go?"

"Are you going to attack anyone else?"

Shepard's voice was menacing - Hawke admired that about the woman. She herself only managed to manipulate through confusion, lust or humour, at least until people had seen her handiwork; Shepard could be more terrifying than the Arishok. It must be the orange glow.

After a moment, Bartrand muttered something that seemed to satisfy Shepard, and she dropped him. Hawke noticed her sister barely suppressing a giggle as the dwarf landed on his arse. Bartrand stood up, glaring murder at anyone who looked ready to comment, then huffed "Well? Off with you, then!"

They'd barely taken a few steps when they were stopped by another dwarf; Bodahn, the merchant. He looked quite distressed.

"My boy," Bodahn said, eyes wide, staring at Hawke in appeal.

"I'm a girl, sorry to disappoint," she said immediately. There's no stopping her mouth, sometimes.

"Sandal! He's missing. Please, serah Hawke... I think he wandered off down a side tunnel, and if you find him while you're out there..."

"I'll point him this way and tell him you've got some enchanting that needs doing."

"Thank you, serah... To think of my boy alone, out there..."

The dwarf trailed off, and Hawke gave him a consoling glance as he ambled away.

"I highly doubt the boy's alive," Anders said, at last.

"We can still look."

"Indeed."

The first thing they ran into were spiders. Big ones. Shepard's omni-tool had barely registered their heat signatures when they dropped from the ceilings, crawled out of the walls, and generally terrified the crap out of everyone. They were the size of rachni, and squealed loud enough to make your bones try to cut their way out of your body. Hawke seemed used to them - she vaulted over to the nearest one and stuck her two blades into two of its eyes, pulling them free with a stomach-turning sucking noise, and barely batted an eyelid. Well...

With barely a thought, Shepard punched up her armour and cursed her biotics for still not. Her omni-blades flashed out, and she carved her way into the midst of the group. In a moment, she was lost in the dance - she was vaguely aware of Anders and Bethany playing the same game she had with the girl - Anders freezing the spiders, and Bethany blasting them with fire. Hawke was playing a deadly game of hit and run, using some kind of acrobatics that Shepard had thought were impossible without a film crew or biotic assistance to deliver punishing blows to the spiders where they were weakest. But Shepard didn't track them like she used to with her people - this was more visceral, it required more focus than even sniping did, and somehow Shepard didn't feel as strongly protective of these people as she did her crew, even though they were as much her friends as anyone on this planet.

Instead, she hacked at the spiders, taking their legs off three or four at a time, or stabbing them right in the middle of their ugly little faces. She realized very quickly to prioritize the larger ones - the smaller ones seemed to spit venom, and all her companions tried to take them out first, but for Shepard's shields that was a minor annoyance - they broke the momentum just enough that the fluid splashed harmlessly to the ground. The larger ones, on the other hand, would try to jump on top of her, and maul her like a dog or a varren. She'd been taken by surprise by one, and it had only failed to rip out her throat because of her armor. Varric had shot it with his powerful crossbow, the bolt tearing its way through the spider and into another that had seemed about to join the feast. Shepard grinned at him as she shot a cryo blast at a spider that had been about to do the same thing to him, and he grinned in response as he shattered the frozen arachnid's head with the butt of his crossbow.

A neural shock took another spider out of the air, the creature screaming in pain before Shepard thrust a blade through it and into the floor, and followed with an overhand cut that split another down the middle. They'd thinned the group considerably, when Hawke shouted Shepard's name, pointing behind her. Shepard glanced over her shoulder, and almost pissed herself. These spiders were still small. Barreling its way toward her over the curled up corpses of what may be its babies, a spider the size of a Mako was heading straight for Shepard.

Shepard took a deep breath and charged straight at the spider, dropping with the intention of sliding beneath it and gutting it as she imagined Hawke might have done with her incredibly fancy moves, but the spider's jaws locked on her shoulder, and it lifted her into the air as its mandibles slid between the holographic plates and into her shoulder.

Hawke was trying to reach her, help her, but the spider was batting at her with its forelegs as it worked its mandibles in deeper. Shepard's vision began to blur - blood loss or shock, she didn't know - and her breathing was ragged. Which was when Bethany made a very familiar gesture and sent the spider flying. Shepard hadn't seen the telltale blue glow of biotics, but that's what it had to be. The girl looked as surprised as Shepard herself, and Hawke even more so, but the latter shouted "Go for the eyes!" and charged even as she stared at her sister in awe over her shoulder. Shepard didn't have to be told twice. She was too weak to get physical, but she blasted the spider with an electric shock, and all her companions rained hell down on it - Anders and Bethany achieving almost an assault-rifle's rate of fire with their fire and cryo blasts. Whatever kind of omni-tool tech those sticks were hiding, Shepard had to get her hands on it.

Eventually the spider stopped kicking, and they stopped to catch their breath. Varric ambled over and handed Shepard a warm, red phial.

"Antidote?" Shepard wheezed? She saw the dwarf grin through the haze as he said, "You could call it that."

She didn't have time to ask. She swallowed the liquid in one gulp, and her eyes almost popped out of her skull as her skin started burning. It was as though every minor scrape and bruise had had salt rubbed into it, and the paired puncture marks in her shoulder felt like they were expelling sulfur and brimstone. She yanked off her coat - only then did she realize her armor had dissipated; she must have deactivated it on reflex - and tore open her shirt, and right before her eyes the wound was knitting itself closed, globs of transparent yellow liquid slipping from what wounded tissue remained and sweating from her pores. In seconds, there was only a perfectly round scar.

"Not as clean as what Blondie would have done," Varric said, "But the poor boy's exhausted, and we need to save the lyrium for if there are more of those."

"What?" Shepard cleared her throat and tried again. "What the fuck was that?"

"Healing potion," Shepard said skeptically for the umpteenth time. It seemed it was some sort of ancestor of medigel, but they insisted it was made from an herb that could be found all over the place. She'd abandoned her decision to keep quiet until she knew who was secretly in charge of this operation - her sweeps had found no signs of any technology on the long road here or their travels in these Deep Roads, they'd made camp for the night, and she'd started demanding answers.

"Look..." She finally said, doing her best to look helpless and confused - which she was, she just never seemed to look it - as she stared right at Anders, "Even if they others don't know the truth, I know you do. You must have some advanced medical equipment somewhere, you clearly have high levels of biotic ability, some sort of omni-tool hidden in that stick, and...yes, the cat's out of the bag. But I'm a council Spectre and a commander in the Alliance Navy. If this operation is council or alliance, I can and hereby do authorize you to divulge this information to these people. If not, if it's Cerberus or some other entity that you're afraid of, I can protect you. I've spent a few years protecting a whole damn galaxy from an ancient race of sentient machines, I swear I can protect you."

"There... I... What you just said makes no sense. Are you...?" Anders placed a hand on her head and she felt the now familiar sensation of him performing whatever scan he uses.

"No concussion, no traces of poison... I suppose it could be mental trauma? I need you lucid for a moment - do you have a history of instability? Does your family? I want to help you, but I can only treat what I know. Perhaps the attack broke your mind..."

"I. Am. Not. Crazy."

"Shepard..." Varric said, his tone soothing, "It's just that half the words you're using are nonsense. Beotic? What's that? I'm sure it means something in your language, but..."

"Biotic. _Bi_ otic. A person capable of generating mass effect fields."

"Mass effect? Mass as in large, or weight?" Anders seemed to be humoring her. Shepard could feel the bile rising. He was keeping up the ruse. _The bastard._

"Look, you know exactly what I mean. So does Bethany. She threw that spider like it was a toy. And I know you have eezo on you. And inside you. My omni-tool gave that away."

"Eezo?" Hawke pronounced perfectly, "Would that be...this?"

From inside a bag - Bethany's - Hawke pulled a small phial, glowing blue, and held it up with one hand, the other stuffing what seemed to be her sister's undergarments back into the pack while Bethany pretended not to notice.

Shepard held up her omni-tool and nodded. Element Zero. Concentrated.

"That's a lyrium potion," Anders said, "It restore's a mage's magical energy. Most mages drink it. That's why you'd detect it in our systems. How do you do that, by the way? I always need to touch someone."

"Magic isn't real. There's only science. A biotic can affect space and - to a certain degree - time. Omni-tools can create mass effect fields, apply medigel, scan people and areas, minifacture various objects, fire off incendiary or cryo blasts...but it's all science. People can't just _do_ these things. You need tools. Even biotics need biotic amps."

"Shepard," Anders said, at last, "Let's get some sleep. We can talk about this in the morning."

And that, it seemed, was all she'd be getting on the topic. But she wasn't going to let go.

They set out at what they judged to be morning, though they'd long since lost track of time, and Shepard was trying to find a new way to approach her questions. They were clearly planning on being stubborn about it, but Shepard needed to get home.

"So..." Bethany said quietly, dropping back behind her sister to walk beside Shepard, "Biotic. That's what you call what I did?"

"Yes," Shepard said, "Though it doesn't usually happen quite that way. A biotic generates a mass effect field with his or her body, controlled by a gesture and a biotic amp. A biotic flare is clearly visible around the biotic, and the field is also visible as it moves toward the target. You may use gestures to control it...but I believe you, at least, when you say you don't know what I'm talking about, so if there's a biotic amp on you, it must be hidden. And I didn't see the field, or a flare around you. Just the effects. I suspect it's all part of an experiment to advance human biotics. I've seen similar things before."

Cerberus and Jack... Could Anders be working for some remnant of Cerberus? Perhaps this planet was one of their big secrets, and they hadn't even heard about Shepard taking down the Illusive Man and most of Cerberus.

"Well, it's always been that way for us. Our mages channel their will, and things happen. I don't know about these...fields?...and the only flares you're likely to see from us are when we throw fire."

Shepard considered this for a moment. "I saw Anders flare once. That bright blue glow?"

"That's Justice," Bethany said, "A spirit. Anders is...well, technically he's possessed, but it's of his own free will. Justice was his friend, but it couldn't live in the mortal world for long, so Anders offered to share his body, and they...became one. As I understand it, at least."

"Spirits and demons are just stories to scare children, Bethany," Shepard said.

"And if we show you differently?"

"I'm not an idiot. I'll believe evidence, as long as it's inconclusive. A funny sounding house is not going to convince me it's haunted."

"Well, that's alright then," Bethany said.

They walked together for a while longer, in silence, until they rounded a corner and Hawke exclaimed "Maker's breath!" as Varric - as usual right at her side, gave an appreciative whistle. Shepard jogged forward to see, and stopped dead in her tracks. All around there were...bodies. Things that looked almost human, but...more like some abomination that the Reapers would dream up. And there was the giant. A horned monstrosity that, for some reason, made Shepard think of Kasumi. A statue? Something they'd seen when Shepard was helping her retrieve Keiji's graybox. Kasumi had said something about no t wanting to run into this thing in a dark alley.

It was as large as the statue, perhaps larger. Massive. Bigger than the brutes the Reapers had used, and it had bull-like horns wider than a door frame. And it was frozen solid. In the middle of all this, a dwarf with a dazed expression on his face stood grinning at them.

"Sandal?" Hawke said, bending over in front of the dwarf, hands on her knees.

"Hello," he replied. His wide blue eyes wandered past Hawke, catching each of them, before wandering back to the giant. A grin slowly spread across his face.

"How did you do this?"

"Not enchantment!" The boy exclaimed happily, and handed Hawke a rock. Shepard stared at it, saw some markings. They glowed faintly. A glance at her omni-tool suggested the stone contained eezo - or lyrium, as they called it here.

"Your father is looking for you."

"Boom!" the boy answered, and ambled off the way they had come.

"I...suppose he's safe?" Bethany said at last. She was staring at the giant, frozen in stone.

"Think it's alive, in there?"

"Maker, I hope not," Hawke replied, "Let's leave before we find out."

And with that, they set off again.

They had to cut their way through more of the abominations that they'd found littered around the boy, and the whole thing reeked of Cerberus. Experimenting with Reaper tech, mutating humans. One of the things they fought was biotic - it had abilities similar to Anders and Bethany - and must have been operating some form of hidden omni-tool as well, throwing incendiary blasts at them with a mere gesture. A more intelligent form of the creatures - what she'd heard Hawke referred to as darkspawn - much like the Reaper marauders leading the husks into battle. Hawke and Varric took care of that - Hawke danced around it, ostensibly trying to get her blades past its defences, but really distracting it so that Varric could send a bolt through its skull. Somehow it kept going even then, for a while, but Hawke quickly kicked whatever life was left in it out.

Shepard, Bethany and Anders focused on the minions - something Shepard was not used to. She was the heavy hitter; unlike most Sentinels, she focused primarily on her ability to strip an enemy's defenses, rather than take punishment, and she always had her sniper rifle - more non-standard training for a Sentinel - to take advantage of the opening she made. But now, in the thick of things, she found herself far more suited to taking down large groups of enemies at once. She could carve swathes as large as those Bethany and Anders did with tech and biotics, and she only needed her blades. Once her biotics were back online...

She lost herself in the melee, easily, slashing and thrusting, kicking at her enemies' knees and disemboweling them, a dance to the rhythm of her adrenaline-pounding heart. She was beginning to understand what the Vanguard program had going for it.

When it was all over, and they were all covered in gore - except Varric - Hawke grinned at her and said "Those magic blades make rather short work of armor plating. I wish I were a mage, just for them."

"If you were a mage, sister, you'd do far better things with magic than cutting people."

"Ah, Bethany, you clearly don't know the thrill of getting close to someone...and sticking sharp objects into their eye sockets."

"Look at me!" The girl answered, "I'm covered in their blood. Head to toe. One of them tried to bite me! I had to pry its jaw loose with my staff. And explode its brains on my boots... You owe me new boots, just for that comment."

"If I might interject?" Shepard said, as Hawke readied what was clearly going to be a brilliantly pointless response, "We killed a few of them, but...they came from over there. That's a long, dark corridor. There may be more. We should..."

Before she finished, she saw Bethany make a gesture, and a pillar that Shepard had recently bashed one of these darkspawn's brains out against collapsed, taking a sizable part of the ceiling with it, and blocking the tunnel.

"That do it?"

Varric groaned. "Sunshine... You just tore up a part of my heritage."

"And risked bringing down the ceiling on all of us," Anders added, sternly.

Bethany looked surprised. "I just wanted to see if I could...Besides, that one wasn't doing much steadying. I saw it shake when Shepard smashed that Hurlock into it."

"Let's...just keep moving."

"So now that we've had our adrenaline rush for the morning..." Shepard said, falling in next to Anders as they complied with Hawke's suggestion, "Care to debate the whole 'magic' story some more?"

She'd had an idea, and could not wait to try it out.

"Shepard," Anders said, "My people, mages, have been discriminated against, murdered, locked up and generally put through hell for as long as people can remember. I don't see how you can debate this, especially not since you're a mage yourself."

"Allow me to show you how," Shepard said, and strode over to Hawke. A quick glance showed that Anders had followed, and in one quick move Shepard unclipped the omni-tool from her left wrist and onto Hawke's. The latter yelped, and again when the omni-tool's display popped up, scanning its new wearer.

 _Scan complete_ it said in a voice not unlike EDI's.

"What did you just do to me?" Hawke asked.

"Wiggle your wrist. Touch something - anything - you see. Go on."

With a dubious expression, Hawke flexed her wrist, and up came the omni-blade.

"Now you're the mage. Anything you've seen me do... You could do it. If you learned to read English, and we reprogrammed the omnitool for your voice and movement."

"I..."

"Now, Anders, I showed you mine. Your turn. This magic story of yours is bullshit."

Hawke was swishing the omni-blade through the air like a child with a new toy, and Bethany was staring in amazement. Varric, though, was watching Shepard suspiciously.

Shepard ignored him for the moment. She needed to get through to Anders.

"Shepard... I'll strip down, if you want. I don't have anything like that on me."

At the mention of Anders stripping, Hawke and Bethany had frozen in place, staring.

"So it's in the stick."

Anders tossed the stick into the air...and shot a cryo blast after it, freezing it to the ceiling. With a heavy sigh he turned to Varric.

"Could you...?"

"Of course, Blondie," Varric said, and shot the ice with a bolt. The stick came back down, and Anders caught it with barely a glance.

"So it's an implant - under your skin."

"You could detect the lyrium inside me. Wouldn't you have found that too?"

"Cerberus could have stealth technology."

"Uhm... Who's Cerberus?" Bethany asked.

"And when's the stripping happening?" Hawke added, a careless gesture with the omni-blade almost taking a gash out of her sister's face. She yelped, as did Bethany, but Shepard and Anders ignored them.

"I'll tell you what," Anders said, staring Shepard in the eyes, and Shepard could swear his had a blue glow growing inside them, "To me it seems you have an enchanted object that allows you to pass for a mage, and you're using it to discredit all my kind."

His voice had dropped a few octaves, and now the glow was clearer, and all around him. "Is this some Templar trick, to make mages seem as though they're in a conspiracy to keep power from the masses? Is it to turn the people against us, even more than they are?"

His veins were glowing blue, now, under his skin. Shepard was wrong - this was nothing like the glow of a biotic. More hampering by Cerberus?

"Anders... Justice... Calm down," Hawke said, approaching carefully. But the blade still glowed on her wrist, and Anders lashed out with his staff, swinging at her head with a roar.

Hawke dodged easily, and Anders, now turned to violence, it seems, rounded on Shepard. She activated her second omni-blade - her armor app was on the other tool, dammit! - but there was another massive roar, and this one did not come from Anders. Shit, was he really possessed by a demon? No living thing could make such a noise.

Varric, though, shouted "Dragon!" and ran for cover.

Shepard looked where he'd pointed, and sure enough...

 _Shit!_

It was much harder to avoid getting gored without her armor. Shepard ducked and wove, and slashed with her blade, but the giant lizard, which breathed fire and had bat wings, and which Shepard refused to call a dragon, had already cut her thick coat in half, and her abdomen stung where the claw had raked across her skin. She had a feeling that, were it not for the sub-dermal armor she'd invested in when she was still with Cerberus, she'd be dead.

She'd only managed to avoid the thing's fire through sheer luck, as had the rest of them, and she was having a hell of a time trying to find a weakness, some opening in its angry flails.

She spotted one, and charged in, but something grabbed her by the coat from behind. She slashed awkwardly behind her, her, heard a squeal, and was let go. She spun around to see a smaller lizard - apparently in its infancy, with a predatory look in its eyes and a hot gash along its neck. She slashed at it again, her omni-blade lopping its head off cleanly, and turned back to the dragon just in time to catch a blast of fire directly to the face.

It hurt - it hurt like being spaced, like having her nerves pulled from her skin - and she fell to the ground. Couldn't breathe, as if her lungs were failing. Going dark...and Anders was there, glowing blue above her, fending off another of the smaller dragons - _fine, let's call them that for now -_ and, almost dismissively flicking a hand at her. A ball of energy sped toward her quickly blurring vision - and she was invigorated. Skin healed, lungs fine, vision clear, days of muscle fatigue washed away.

 _Did he just biotically administer medigel? That quickly? How?_

She had no time. The dragon was still attacking, and it was all her allies - her friends- could do to defend themselves. The problem was the babies. The smaller dragons were keeping them distracted, and while Hawke had adapted to using the omni-blade with her fighting style rather quickly, she still couldn't take the hits and clear the area. The armor was on the omni-tool Hawke had, and Shepard couldn't take it back, or even show Hawke how to punch it up.

They had to clear all the smaller ones out first, though. And without her biotics, without her tech...

"Bethany!" Shepard shouted. The young woman looked at her, an expression of terror on her face, and Shepard tried to simplify her command as much as possible.

"Clear the area!" She shouted, gesturing with her hands, down and out. A biotic artillery strike, like Jack always talked about. Bethany had to be strong, to break that pillar earlier.

Her expression changing to a determined look, the girl nodded and faced her sister, and mimed the exact same motion that Shepard had. It worked. Shepard again saw no biotic flare, no indication at all, but the smaller dragons around Hawke were hurled this way and that, and Hawke immediately leapt after one, stabbing it before it even hit the ground. Varric shot another out of the air, and Anders froze one solid. It shattered as it hit the floor.

Quick on the uptake.

Shepard charged toward Hawke, ducking beneath dragon claws and slashing at anything that seemed a good target, intent, at first, on getting her omni-tool back, while Bethany gave them breathing room.

But Hawke was doing rather well with the blade - she still had one of her daggers in her right hand, but was barely using it in favour of the blade that didn't skitter across the dragonlings' scales.

Instead, Shepard covered Hawke's back, and they worked their way through the...clutch? _What do you call a group of baby dragons?_ Shepard wondered.

Eventually, side by side, they had only the larger dragon left, and quickly ducked beneath its attack, slashing at them with both claws. It roared again - so loud the entire room trembled - and the others covered their ears. Not Shepard. Not Hawke - Hawke was learning, momentary deafness was preferable to cutting oneself on an omni-blade.

With a glance at Hawke, Shepard charged, and she felt Hawke do the same, one step behind her. They split around the dragon, and as it turned to follow one of them - Shepard, of course - it lashed at Hawke with its tail.

Hawke just crouched low, and held up the blade.

The dragon's bellow was terrible as it sheared off its own tail against the super-heated blade, and it reared up on its hind legs - and overbalanced, without its tail to keep it balanced. As it hit the ground with a large thud, a barrage of bolts - wooden shafts, as well as cryo and incendiary blasts - rained down on its exposed stomach. It tried to get to its feet, but Shepard and Hawke crippled it, for once managing to get close enough to the legs to slash deep into the bone, as it was in too much pain to strike out.

Shepard marched forward, looking at its eyes. She saw pain, and animal savagery. This was not the wise or cunning dragons from legend. This was nothing but a giant lizard. Perhaps another Cerberus experiment. Shepard raised her blade, and put it out of its misery.


	3. Seeing Red

Chapter Three - Seeing Red

"So you can really do no magic without those...things?"

Hawke had asked the same question, differently phrased, a few times now. Shepard merely nodded, but Hawke was not discouraged.

"And anyone can use them?"

"Yes. If they know how."

"And now you're...?"

Shepard sighed. The red-haired woman had been fiddling with both of these fantastic weapons of hers for some time, now, and it all seemed so fascinating.

"I'm reconfiguring one of them. The one I'd had, when we fought that dragon. It's my secondary - I never used it for anything except the omni-blade, and sometimes firing off a blast, but even the blasts were directed through it using my primary...which you had. All my information is on this one, everything I need," Shepard said, holding up one of the small, magical bits of whatever-nonsense-she-called-it.

"The other one I just used to facilitate my fighting style. I'm transferring the armor app to it, and changing its controls. Simplifying them."

"In case you lose one, so you have a backup," Hawke nodded, at last. She draw a slender, simple black blade from a hidden sheathe at her back.

"I also have a simple backup."

"This one's for you," Shepard said at last, holding out the bit-of-nonsense she'd fiddled the most with.

"I've made the controls as simple as possible - and all haptic, so you don't need to learn any new languages or anything. You'll only be using it as a weapon. And as armor. The way I do."

Hawke was dumbstruck. So, she could tell, was her companions. Bethany actually dropped the water skin she'd been drinking from, and cursed as it leaked water all over her already-ruined boots. Her sweet sister.

Shepard was offering Hawke a weapon, that would... Maker, the things she could do. She'd had a taste of it, and...

"Are you going to take it or not?"

In a daze, Hawke held out her wrist, and Shepard snapped the bit-of-nonsense around it. Again, it came up with the orange glow. Again, it said the strange words in the strange language that Hawke assumed was Shepard's home tongue.

"For the blade, you flick your wrist back and quickly make a fist. To turn the blade off, you do the same thing again. For the armor, put your thumb inside your fist and squeeze. Same thing to turn it off... It also has flashlight and map apps, so for the map..."

Hawke only half listened. She'd seen Shepard's armor. It was ghostly, and blades came through, but slowed, as if the wielders were under water. She'd felt the power of these blades. She'd seen the other things Shepard could do with this.

She could not believe Shepard was giving it to her.

"Why?" She asked, when Shepard had finished telling her all about the fun and exciting things she could do now. Ice. Lightning. Stabbing.

"So you'll know I'm not lying. So you'll trust me. So you'll stay alive. You take on things that are...very dangerous. Your... 'mages...' have a distinct advantage over you. But mostly because you're a damn good fighter, and if someone's got my back, I've got theirs. That means giving what I can for the best of the group."

"You know, Shepard, none of us are lying. We don't do the things you do the way you do them."

"I believe that you believe that," Shepard said, "But I can still explain everything so far scientifically. The day I see one of your spirits, maybe I'll believe in your magic."

"I believe Daisy could set that up," Varric said, absently, as he oiled Bianca's strings. He had an unhealthy attachment to that crossbow.

"Varric!" Bethany scolded him, and Varric winked at Hawke. Not for the first time, Hawke thought she might well try to seduce him...and not for the first time, she immediately swore that she would never play second fiddle to a crossbow. They treated it as a joke, but it was the truth. The man had some deeper connection to the bow than he let on, and nobody could get him drunk enough to talk about it.

"So explain to us where you come from, then, Shepard," Anders demanded, "Where on Thedas could there be no mages, only people with this... 'Biotics' of yours?"

"Not Thedas," Shepard said, and lifted her bit-of-nonsense. Hawke had one now, she'd have to start using the proper name. Shepard had created an apparition from hers - a map of where they were. At least, as far as they'd explored.

"This is us, right now," she said, then stroked her fingers across the vision in a blurring pattern, and there was a map of...Kirkwall? Everywhere Shepard had been. Shepard swiped her fingers around more, and the image became smaller, as if seen from a distance, and...

"Here's the city, and the path we took to get here. All of this is part of your... Thedas. Part of a planet. That planet," Shepard said, as she pulled up another image "Is part of a star system, probably similar to this one. I can't call up an image of your system, because I've never seen it, I have no idea where it is. But this is mine."

Another image, a blue and green sphere, white swirls around it. Pretty.

"This is a planet. My planet. Earth. Mostly water, some green plant life, lots of people."

Another image - one of the green parts, enlarged.

"The Americas,"

Another, a city, Hawke thought, "Vancouver," and another image, a strange building...and Shepard sitting at a desk, surrounded by all sorts of strange things, and looking out a window, "Where I'm from. In a sense."

She called up another image - a strange shaped object surrounded by a strange, glowing fog, and...were those stars?

"The Citadel, a space station,"

Again, a closer image - Hawke saw how this worked, "One of the arms of the Citadel, a city," and a closer one, a door with a lot of...very strange people sticking their heads around the corner, as if peeking out. There was a woman with blue skin and tentacles on her head. A few looked like normal people - one was big and muscular, and another woman seemed right about to chew your nose off - but there was also a person who was all silver and white, with an orange glow over her face, and there were... things. Two had massive, plated heads. Another had a small, plated head. Right in the middle of the doorway sat a man with a goofy grin - Hawke liked him already - knees to chest.

"My apartment," Shepard flicked her hand across the image, and it changed, to what Hawke assumed was the inside. There sat the blue tentacle-woman reading a book. There was the grinning man, on the lap of the silver woman. More images - a very ugly man Hawke had seen in the doorway, with mismatched eyes standing along the small-headed plated thing, in front of a contraption of metal that he seemed immensely proud of. The two big headed plated things, heads together, looking angry. A woman with Isabela's coloring blushing in a way Isabela never would, with the silver woman talking to her. The big man flying and glowing blue, with tentacle woman holding her hand up to him. Magic, clearly. Or biotics, as Shepard says. So many images.

"How do you create such fine art?" Anders asked, and Shepard blinked. Then pointed the omni-tool at Anders - hah! Hawke had gotten the name right - and there was a flash. And an image of a stunned Anders floating above Shepard's hand.

"Like that."

"I..." Anders began. Varric stopped him.

"Missing the point, Blondie. Shepard...are you saying you're from _the stars?_ "

"Absolutely," Shepard answered, fingers blurring for another image. A tube...of metal...with wings?

"My ship, the Normandy," more images, "Inside - there's Joker," - grinning man in a seat in front of...more glowing images and strange doodads, and silver woman behind him - "Liara," - tentacle woman in front of yet more glowy images - "Ash," nose-bite woman apparently passed out near a chair - "My cabin..." - a small but interesting room. With lots of fish.

"That's home. This was taken from a Mass Relay's security footage," Shepard said, and another image appeared. Shepard's...ship...among the stars with a blue glow around it.

"Your magic lets you sail the stars?"

"Science does that," Shepard said, "So you can see how I believe everything here is just science."

"Stars," Varric said, but he said it like he was calling someone's attention, and...oh! "Shepard, that's you. Varric just nicknamed you."

"Right. Stars? I'll believe that shit the day you believe ours."

Shepard stared at the dwarf for a while, and grinned.

"Deal."

Shepard regretted giving Hawke an omni-tool the moment they set out the next morning. The woman shot electricity at the walls at every sound, and once cryo-blasted the floor in front of Bethany, causing the younger woman - who had been daydreaming - to slip and fall right on her ass, much to Hawke's amusement. Still, they made good time, and finally confirmed that the path they'd been following took them back to the road they'd meant to travel when they found a cave in, along a major road, and matched Shepard's map with Anders' hand-drawn one. Of course, that meant turning back, which irritated Shepard to no end. Why couldn't they just send Bartrand a copy of their map? Because no extranet, no omni-tools. These primitives.

On the second day, they passed the site where Sandal had taken care of all those darkspawn, and found it to be devoid of the big creature that had been frozen in place.

"Where do you suppose it went?" Bethany asked. They waited a moment, but there were no roars, no thudding footsteps, no signs at all that the giant creature was going to come after them.

How disappointing.

Another day's travel to Bartrand, and another five, to get the whole expedition through the narrow corridors. When they finally made it back to the main road, Hawke gathered their small party and declared that they'd be scouting ahead from now on.

They didn't run into much trouble. A few darkspawn stragglers, now and then, but no match for both Shepard and Hawke with omni-tools. Shepard and Hawke had been spending some time practicing together - Hawke had given Shepard her off-hand dagger, of which Varric seemed insanely jealous - and every straggler they ran into fared worse. Hawke was by far the better fighter, hand to hand. Shepard had once beaten James Vega at sparring, but this was real, and while the Alliance did have its soldiers spend a lot of time practicing hand to hand combat, it never saw much use, especially after the switch to thermal clips. Shepard remembered, on Torfan, when things had gotten bad, her weapons overheating and refusing to start cooldown for some reason, and how she'd had to make use of the rather brutal fighting style the Alliance navy taught. But Shepard was still trained primarily to shoot at her targets. She'd even done special training as a sniper, rare for anyone in her program.

Hawke lived and breathed close up combat. She'd adapted her acrobatics, and had tried to teach Shepard some of it. That didn't take. Shepard stuck to her tried and tested method of powering through any obstacle. Stay grounded, hit them hard. Eventually Hawke gave up, and just helped her with the dagger a little. Parrying, how to change grips easily and so forth.

A few days' travel, and they finally reached an area they hadn't been before.

"Well..." Varric began, looking around. He seemed too dazed to complete his catchphrase. The architecture... It was old. Very, very old. Shepard had seen ancient ruins on Tuchanka, and these stones carried the same feeling of age.

"This is big," Varric said at last.

Hawke cocked her head, a non-verbal queue Shepard had begun to associate with loading a gun, and a moment later, sure enough, she fired.

"Hellooooooo!" Hawke exclaimed, grinning at the echo. "Very big, Varric. Perhaps big enough for your brother's ego."

"Now don't exaggerate," Varric grinned, "The whole of Thedas isn't _that_ big. Seriously, though, this looks like a thaigh. But older. Before dwarves began recording history. Before... Well, before they were what the elders would consider dwarves. This... Nobody has ever found anything like this."

"Or perhaps no-one has lived to tell the tale?" Bethany said. The words seemed joking, but her tone... She was pointing, and following her finger, Shepard could see, in the distance...what the hell were they?

They seemed to have heads like geth, but there was absolutely nothing vaguely mechanical about them. They looked like nothing more than oily, floating, black rags. With, as Ashley would have said, flashlight heads.

"Shades," Varric said, as he loaded Bianca.

"What are shades?"

"Demons," Hawke answered immediately. She, too, had armed herself, slipping her dagger out of the sheathe on her back, and activating the omni-tool's blade and armor. Apparently these 'demons' meant business.

Still, as she was arming herself, Shepard couldn't help but want to reject the notion that these are anything but another, strange form of sentient life.

Before she could say anything, Anders was already answering "It doesn't matter that you don't believe in spirits, Shepard. Whatever they are is going to be trying to tear our guts out in approximately three... Two..."

"One," Varric finished, and with that he fired Bianca, taking the middle of three targets. He'd attached some sort of explosive to the bolt - Shepard made a mental note to see him about grenades - and all three of them burst into flame like the oily rags that they are.

The rest, though, true to Anders' prediction, were coming straight for them. Bethany immediately took out another two with a wave of icicles, angled up from the ground like pikes of the medieval days. The creatures charged right into them.

Anders set fire to another, and Hawke finally hit something with the overload tech she'd been blatantly abusing up until then, and then the shades were on them. And they were agile. Shepard slashed wide with her omni-blade, thrust at where her target was moving with her dagger, but she just couldn't hit them. They moved as if they had no bones. So...slow them.

A cryo blast aimed near but not quite at one of the bastards covered it in ice, and with a triumphant snicker, Shepard swung her omni-blade at it...but it flowed aside. As if it had no blood or muscles, no fluid or gears, nothing that would be slowed by the intense cold of her blast, which was blatantly ridiculous. If that were the case, stabbing them wouldn't work, and Hawke had already managed to take out two - at once, one with each blade in her showboat fashion - so they had to have a physical presence. Shepard slashed and stabbed again, and as the creature dodged her dagger-thrust, she deployed the almost-instant overload tech that Hawke had used earlier, and the creature...popped. Just like shields would. That was the only comparison Shepard could draw.

It left some oily, black rags on the floor.

A clawed hand raked across her back, and she was drawn back into the thick of battle, repeating the dance of cut, thrust and electrocute. The creatures didn't seem to learn, and that was good. Were they VI's? Perhaps operating some tech that generated a mass effect field for a body, and taking down the field shorted out the tech? But who would go to that effort - there were far easier ways to get far more intelligent and tougher drones.

Irrelevant to the moment, though - they were still surrounded, and things were getting worse. A shout of "Golem" from Varric drew Shepard's attention; apparently a living boulder was charging them, head first, like a Krogan.

Swiping wide around her, not trying to hit any of the shades swarming them, Shepard cleared her way to intercept it. This was something she was sure she could cut.

Hawke loved this weapon Shepard had given her - loved it more than any man or woman she'd ever had, more than her family, more than...it was amazing. The armor was at least twice as tough as her usual reinforced leather, and still allowed her to wear that underneath. The blade moved like an extension of her arm - which, she supposed, it was - and the lightning... She had no idea how mages went a single day without zapping something.

She took out a few more shades - they were really like demonic bees, a mindless swarm - and her gaze, for an instant, fell on Shepard.

The other woman was a force of nature - she might lack Hawke's own finesse, but she just didn't quit.

Hawke had seen her charge at the golem, and had winced when the thing dropped and bowled into Shepard like the boulder it was made of. Shepard clearly hadn't been prepared for that, and only a split-second dive saved her from being crushed. As is it still managed to hit her, but at least not run over her. The two were engaged, now, in the reverse of the dance she had seen Shepard do with the shades earlier - the golem swiping at Shepard, Shepard dodging aside, far more nimble than the stone man. But Shepard still had shades to contend with as well, and just didn't have the opportunity to strike at the golem. At some point Shepard would get tired, make a mistake, and...

Hawke sighed as she dove under a shade's swipe and impaled it on her dagger, the blade Shepard had given her swinging around in a wide arc to take out a second. She was one step closer to Shepard. Then three, and another three. Carving and electrocuting a path forward, Hawke was just in time to catch the mistake she'd predicted - Shepard being forced to dive out of the way of a shade's swipe and directly into the golem's crushing fist. Shepard staggered forward, looking dazed - as she should well be; the blow would likely have killed anyone without her amazing armour - and the golem raised its giant fists over its head. Hawke had seen that before - it was going to crush Shepard. A flick of her glowing wrist, and sparks danced across the golem's body, doing hardly any harm, but Hawke was only trying to get its attention. It worked. The golem's fists paused, as it considered the new target, but not for more than a moment before smacking down into the spot Shepard had thankfully just vacated. The other woman seemed to have recovered - really, Hawke had no idea how she did that - and was aiming a thrust at the stone-man's head. Hawke, for her part, electrocuted a shade that was about to distract Shepard again - if talons in the ears could be called distracting - and yet more shades around Shepard went up in fire or down to ice, with the odd bolt in between. Varric, Bethany and Anders, apparently, had decided to rally on Hawke, as usual. Without the swarm distracting her, Shepard made swift work of the lumbering rock. Her first thrust missed its head, but gouged a considerable amount of stone from its chest. When it struck again, Shepard ducked underneath the swing and slashed a leg, deep. The stone man toppled, unable to balance on a crumbling limb, and struck again, but Shepard split its fist down the middle, then cut off its other arm at the shoulder. One heavy swipe, and the stone head bounced off its chest, like the first pebble of a landslide. Finishing off the rest of the shades was easy.

When they were done, Hawke wiped her brow, grinning at Shepard.

"Refreshing, wasn't that? I was getting bored."

"I got hit by something that looked like a living rock."

"That's because it was one, Stars," Varric said, in his faux patronizing tone.

"Let me guess; magic?"

"Brilliant dwarven craftsmanship mixed with a little bit of lyrium. Dwarves can't do magic."

"I see," Shepard said, sounding exhausted, as though she were the one arguing with people who refused to see what was right in front of them.

"Let me take a look at you," Anders said, before Shepard could say anything else, and laid his hands on her shoulders. A moment later, Hawke saw the tell-tale stiffening of Shepard's muscles as Anders healed her. The mage really did seem to have a soft spot for her - he never fussed about the rest of the team that way.

"So what possessed you to charge directly at a walking rock?" Hawke enquired when Shepard's eyes rolled back down.

"I've killed a thresher maw on foot. That thing was no threat."

"Clearly it was," Anders noted, rubbing his head.

"What's a thresher maw?" Bethany asked, her voice hollow - the constant darkness must be getting to Hawke's sunny sister. She owed her a drink. Perhaps a day at the Rose as well, if she could talk her sister into letting loose a bit.

"Like... A dragon with no wings or claws. It burrows underground and pops up to attack anyone on the surface. And instead of breathing fire, it spits globs of acid."

"Thresher maw..." Varric repeated, "There's a story in there..."

"And how well did you get off from that fight?"

"Hardly got hurt. I had a Cain. That's...like a crossbow that fires...fireballs? Big, big fireballs."

"And this is the weapon you carry with you?"

"That's all that survived the...event that brought me here. Still not clear how that happened, but there it is." Shepard seemed as if she'd only now thought of something, and it worried her. A lot of things seemed to worry the woman. Then again, if she really was from the stars, Hawke could understand that.

They moved on in silence, Hawke watching her companions as was her wont. Varric, her manly dwarf, seemed to be planning a story in his head. He's always doing that, but he seemed very serious about this one. Bethany seemed exhausted - Anders should take a look at her when they settle down to camp. The mage in question could barely take his eyes off Shepard - Hawke didn't blame him, there's something extremely appealing about the woman. Hawke had seen better looking people, but Shepard had a presence about her... Shepard, for her part, was doing...something... with her omni-tool. She seemed to be saving images of the thaigh, just like the images she showed them before. She had to teach Hawke to do that. Hawke wanted to learn everything there was to know about this tool.

A few doors, some dead ends, and a narrow escape from a surprise cave in - with Varric complaining that the ancient dwarves clearly hadn't been such great masons as the elder dwarves would have them believe - and just as they were ready to set up camp, they found it. Inside a chamber, there was something...brilliant. Hawke was a hoarder. She hoarded. This would be the jewel of her hoard. It glowed. It sang to her.

"It's lyrium," Varric said, amazed, "Red lyrium. Can that be? Stars?"

Shepard pointed her omni-tool at the object and nodded. "Eezo. Lyrium. Where I'm from we have a drug made from eezo. Red sand. It makes biotics extremely powerful, among other things."

"So a form of refined lyrium, then?"

Anders also seemed intrigued. Really, the only one not seeing stars, as far as Hawke could tell, was Shepard. Ironic, that.

"I'm going to fetch my brother," Varric said, at last, "Don't break anything, Hawke."

"Varric!" she exclaimed, but the dwarf was ignoring her.

"Sunshine, your sister breaks anything, I'm holding you responsible."

"Varric, you know I can't stop her."

This was unfair. They both seemed to be so sure...

"Just...set Stars on her if she starts. That'll be a fight I'd pay to see, but... Stars, you up for that?"

Shepard, to Hawke's dismay, just nodded. Did nobody trust her? At all?

With that, Varric was off.

Shepard had showed her how to capture images with the omni-tool, and they spent the hours Varric was gone exploring the chamber, capturing interesting details, and talking. There was a small, locked chest, and after trying to pick the lock and failing miserably, Hawke glanced quickly at her companions - they weren't looking, and deployed her omni-blade. A moment later, the chest was open. It would, in fact, never close again, but that didn't matter. It's contents - gold coins of a sort Hawke had never seen before, and a ragged bit of cloth that might have once been a purse - was stuffed in Hawke's travelling bag. There was also a small, ornate dagger, fine craftsmanship, which Hawke slipped in behind her belt. It wasn't long enough for fighting, and the metal seemed too soft even as a backup weapon, but it would look nice in her hoard.

At last, Varric returned at a jog, Bartrand huffing and puffing away at his heels. Bartrand froze in the doorway, but Varric ran all the way to the artefact, which he took immediately to his brother.

"We're going to be rich," Bartrand said, his voice awed. Hawke tuned him out after that. Blah, blah, blah, idol, blah, blah, find of the century. They'd been over it with each other. Shepard seemed to know a fair deal about ruins and the discovery thereof. She said she was close to an archaeologist, once, whatever that meant.

Hawke, her attention half on the idol in Bartrand's hands, was looking for more chests to loot. Varric was admiring their find - he hadn't had the opportunity before - and everything seemed perfect...right up to the point where the door slammed shut.

"Bartrand!" Varric shouted.

"I can't share this find, Varric!" Came a muffled voice from the other side of the door, "It's too big. As is, I'll be set up for life! You understand."

"Bartrand, open up you little shit!" Shepard shouted, running up to the door, her omni-blade glowing. Shepard cut into the door, and Bartrand screamed, as if in pain, on the other side. Hawke had her own blade out in an instant, and the door... Well, Hawke supposed she was quite good at breaking things.

It took only a few seconds to carve their way through, but Bartrand was already rounding the corner. Shepard charged after him, but she'd only gone a few steps when there was a brilliant, bright red flash, and a tremor, and the roof came crashing down behind Bartrand.

Shepard barely avoided getting crushed.

"How..." Varric coughed, as the dust settled.

"That idol," Shepard said. "Red sand will give even the most normal human brief biotic abilities. Perhaps it was designed to imbue a person with powers, make a sort of god-king."

"Dwarves don't believe in any gods, Stars."

"Good for you," Shepard said, "But these, according to you, weren't what your elders would call dwarves."

"So... we have to get out somehow," Anders said at last.

"And so we shall," Hawke said. With a flourish, and to Shepard's amazement, she brought up her omni-tool's map, and started explaining what she expected.


	4. Corrupt

_Author's Note_ _: Thanks for the feedback, Inverness! To those who agreed that Shepard's skepticism was getting a bit much; I thought of it as Shepard having grown in an age of scientific wonders. The woman was brought back from the dead, after all. And she's clinging to her old life for the sake of her sanity. But I also had a particular plan for what will eventually break her of this point of view. On that note, enjoy the following chapter, and any feedback is appreciated._

Chapter Four - Corrupt

They were making their way down some stairs when the noises started. Some sort of crackling, and the shifting of stones just before a landslide. Hawke was about to dive for cover - if she could find any - when Varric said "Rock wraiths... I thought they were a myth."

Hawke followed his gaze. In the distance, boulders held together by red lightning were converged. They seemed to be communicating."

"What the fuck?" Said Shepard...

"What's a fuck?" Bethany asked.

"I have a feeling, sweet sister, that it's a word that Isabela really would like to learn. Sailors and their swearing..."

"Um... Attention back on the wraiths, please? I don't want to die."

Varric seemed rather insistent. And with good reason - one of the wraiths was drifting toward them, the others following close by.

 **I have watched you.**

The words just appeared in Hawke's head. The voice was deep and unnerving - a glance at her companions confirmed that they, too, were hearing it. _Demon,_ Anders mouthed at her as she caught his eye. Of course.

"I'm flattered, spirit," Hawke replied, "But alas, my mother would kill me if I brought a spirit home."

The demon seemed to have no sense of humor. Or it was only ignoring her, as it went on; **You destroy. You destroyed the shades. You destroyed the golem. You destroyed the dark ones. I would have you spare these ones... They are my feast. Their cravings... I feed on them. Spare them, and they shall harm you not. There is only one who would defy me - an ancient one, guarding a treasure it stole from me. And you must destroy that one. It will take all your resources. You cannot afford to waste any on those who stand with me. Destroy the ancient, and leave my treasure. We shall harm you not, and I shall guide you from this place. Do not return.**

"Hawke, if you make a bargain with this demon..." Anders began, but toward the end of the threat he was glowing with justice. That was getting tiresome. Shepard also didn't seem too pleased. But they'd been searching for a way back to a tunnel they recognized on minimal sleep, and Bethany seemed far too weak to fight all these rocks. Especially if they had to face an ancient one, later. Her poor sister really didn't take well to the dark.

"Well. If you'd be so kind as to point us to the ancient nasty - "

"What? Traitor!" Anders shouted. He was in full-on justice mode, now, staff out and everything.

"I don't trust this thing," Shepard added. "It looks like a Reaper. It sounds like a Reaper. It..."

But Hawke caught Shepard's gaze, and glanced at Bethany. Her sister was leaning heavily on her staff, and doing her best to look brave. Shepard followed her gaze, then nodded.

"Well, I suppose if it betrays us we can fight it then, instead."

"No," Justice began, "This is not - "

"That's final," Shepard shot at the mage, and the glowing lines beneath her face flared up for an instant. Justice met her gaze, and Anders backed down. Hawke was impressed.

"So it shall be," the demon agreed, and in short order they were off after its nemesis. Fun.

They insisted that the talking rock was a demon. While the others were just rock-wraiths. Shepard had run out of arguments. She'd seen the Reapers do some weird stuff, and Cerberus was using their tech, but why animate rocks? Lack of metal? So why levitate them with electricity? There was no way that was efficient in any way. And...everything here seemed to be ancient.

It could, of course, have been the Reapers themselves, back in the Protheans' cycle. Or the Protheans - perhaps their cycle's analogue to Cerberus, trying to make shock troops.

Still, why all this...weirdness? It didn't make sense.

They followed the rock's directions and, as promised, soon found themselves in a massive hall. There were pillars everywhere, and boulders lay all about.

"Think it heard we were coming and decided to flee?" Varric said, thinking aloud.

"Oh, Varric," Hawke said, to Shepard's right, "you're so full of optimism and wonder..."

"These boulders didn't come from anywhere," Anders noted, "There's no damage this extensive anywhere in this chamber."

"It's sleeping," Bethany whispered.

And then it woke up.

Red lightning shot between the boulders, almost electrocuting Shepard, and they formed into a creature just like the ones they'd seen earlier, but this one was massive. Half-again as tall as a Geth colossus, it carried the smell of ozone, and a flare in its electricity sounded almost like a furious roar. Down came its hand, and everyone ducked aside, Hawke blasting at the thing with her overload tech. How could they fight this thing? Shepard really needed a Cain. Or her biotics back.

On that thought, she was about to try her biotics again, when another swipe forced her to dodge. She couldn't afford to risk it. If it hurt too much, if she was incapacitated for just a moment, she would be crushed. She'd already been injured enough not to want that. So tech it was.

An advantage of not having her old armor interfacing with her omni-tool was that the cool down on her tech attacks was practically nonexistent. Shepard blasted away with overload, and she could swear that it was starting to wear the thing down - though likely Bethany and Anders were doing most of the work, in that respect. A few blasts and narrow escapes, and the creature seemed to withdraw on itself, like a turtle retreating into its shell, with the boulders forming a near perfect ball, protecting its red lightning core.

"I think we hurt it," Hawke said, sounding smug...

"I think... Take cover!" Shepard shouted in response, as she saw the sparks. They'd barely made their way behind a pillar when boulders, shrapnel and red energy exploded all around them. Some of it tore into Bethany's arm, but there wasn't much bleeding. Everyone was fine.

"Good save," Hawke commented. When they peered back around their cover, the giant was back to its normal form, and with it a group of smaller wraiths

"Well... Fuck?" Varric said, glancing at Shepard for confirmation that the word was suitable. It was.

Round two saw Hawke and Shepard taking on the smaller wraiths, while Bethany and Anders took care of their big friend. Luckily it seemed that their blades - omni-blades as well as steel - interfered with something in the creatures' power flow, since a well- aimed thrust would cause them to fall to the ground as nothing more than stones. They'd just taken down the last few when Bethany collapsed, apparently too exhausted to keep fighting. The giant wasted no time - its massive hand was coming down on Bethany in an instant.

"Bethany!" Hawke shouted, and Shepard realized that she was only a moment behind - but she was also way ahead of Hawke. Whilst Hawke was powerless and had to watch her sister get crushed, Shepard had her biotics. Without thought, she flared up, and held the bastard in a stasis field. She was extremely glad Liara had taught her that. After a second, and a glance at her companions' stunned faces, she was also glad that her biotics were, apparently, just fine again. But she had no time to be thankful, the giant was breaking free of her field. So she sent a warp field at it, her lack of heavy armour again causing her to be taxed less, so she could recover much faster. The fields detonated on contact with each other, and while the giant stumbled back, Shepard yelled "Fire!"

As Anders' fireballs and Varric's explosive bolts rained down on the ancient rock wraith, Shepard, in her mind, was back on Sur'Kesh, protecting Urdnot Bakaara from an Atlas mech. Garrus, still miffed that he didn't have a Scorpion pistol like Kirahe's , was taking pot shots with his concussive tech and armor piercing rounds. Javik was providing a steady stream of Prothean-tech death with his particle rifle, and Shepard was warping the armor and overloading the barriers, battering the titan into submission. This wraith wasn't much harder, now that she had her biotics back. No need to dodge its swipes - she could knock them aside with biotic throws. It couldn't protect itself - warp was designed to break through a tank's hull, rock was no challenge. And the repetition of warp and throw allowed for constant detonations - perhaps not so powerful as the one with the stasis field, but regular, always keeping their opponent off balance. It huddled up again, and the others ducked behind a pillar, but Shepard just laid another stasis field on it, and yelled "I'm holding it - attack!"

Bethany was back on her feet - Anders must have gotten to her, or she drank one of those 'potions' that they'd used on Shepard before - and she joined in the barrage, as did Hawke with her overload. It was anti-climatic, really. The thing sparked and fizzed, but couldn't let loose. Maybe it even hurt itself with its own energy. As soon as the barrier started weakening, Shepard cut in with another warp field. The explosion wasn't half as dramatic as Aria T'loak could have pulled off. The creature just...crumbled.

"It's done," Hawke said, amazed in the silence.

"I didn't think we'd make it out of that one, Stars, but you..."

"You saved me," Bethany said, and hugged Shepard. She felt weak, and feverish. Shepard wanted to scan her, but Hawke dived into the hug as well, with Bethany between them, and held on tight.

"Shepard," she said after a moment, "You saved my little sister. My brother died - he got crushed by a giant bastard too. He was a twat, but he was my brother. You did it. You didn't die. I just wanted you to know you're family now. So... part of what I make, part of the inheritance...all yours. Don't argue. You saved my sister."

After a moment, all Shepard could say was "Of course I did. You guys are...family."

They set up camp immediately. Fuck travelling, fuck escaping, that was exhausting. They ate, and drank - a lot - and Shepard told them of her days in training. That had been among the biggest adjustments of her life.

Growing up she'd always been an only child, and while she understood and respected the value of teamwork, she'd always been smarter, tougher... She'd always been on her own. Training to work as a unit was hard, but it got easier as she moved up in the ranks. She had no problem connecting with her companions. She even cared deeply about some of them. She knew how to look out for them - she was always aware, on the field, of her squad's status - it was part of Sentinel training. No matter that Shepard specialized in stripping defenses, a Sentinel was, first and foremost, a combat medic.

But she also knew how to accept loss. The only people she'd ever gotten so close to that she couldn't deal with losing them were Liara, Tali and Garrus. Many on her squad were special to her - Kasumi, Thane, Miranda - but while she'd mourn them, she'd move on. As she'd once told Garrus, there's really no Shepard without Vakarian. He was her best friend. Tali was her kid sister. And Liara... Liara was the reason she'd taken on the Reapers without a moment's pause. She could deal with losing the galaxy. But they also wanted Liara.

Now, here, she realized she'd grown so close to these complete strangers. Anders was annoying, but he was like her brother. Hawke was her sister. Varric may well be Garrus' shorter, better looking fraternal twin. Bethany... Well. This was not just her squad. This was her family.

But she didn't tell them any of that.

"Who says goldfooting?" Hawke screamed with laughter. She was undeniably drunk.

"He does, and so did I for a few weeks. It's pretty catchy."

Even Bethany was smiling, but she seemed about to fall asleep. She was curled up like a kitten, looking cute and waiting to be stroked. Anders had long since passed out - he'd challenged Shepard to a drinking contest - and Varric was scribbling in his journal, 'chronicling the day's events' as he said.

Of course the demon would choose that moment to show up.

 **Leave,** it said, in its Reaper voice. **It is done. You must leave. The way is through that door,** it gestured, **And if you lose your way I will find you and see that you return to it. take nothing. Leave now.**

"We need sleep," Hawke said, ever the voice of reason.

 **Leave.**

"Varric," Hawke said in response. There was a sharp twang, and a bolt was suspended in mid air between the stones that, respectively, made up the creature's chest and head, before it all tumbled to the ground, just a pile of rocks and probably something the rocks would consider badass last words in their language. Wow, she was drunk.

Varric twirled his bolt between his fingers and put it back in its quiver. With a wink at Shepard, he said "I'll take first watch, wake you when I'm done writing. Sleep, Stars - it's tiring work, being accepted into Hawke's family."

"Hear hear," Hawke said, and snuggled up to her sister.

Shepard was out before her head touched the floor.

The morning started with looting, which Shepard found very enjoyable. She'd scrounged her fair share of gear and credits she found lying about, and done a few more questionable things - mainly on Omega, during the plague - but this was a veritable horde. Hawke chortled as she found more and more treasure, and filled every pack she had until she could barely carry them. Shepard's biotics took up a lot of slack - it was good to be using them again, and provided she got large enough meals and regular rest she'd be able to haul a lot of this loot.

She also made a point of breaking apart one of the large boulders that made up the giant rock wraith they'd fought, and she found...nothing. No trace of any tech whatsoever. It's not that she didn't recognize anything, there just was literally nothing there except rock and some eezo. Lyrium. She took a few samples nevertheless, for a detailed scan with her omni-tool, and they set out.

They were drawing closer to their destination - according to the maps they had on their omni-tools, they'd almost doubled back on themselves, and were moving parallel to one of their first camps, only a day or two into the tunnels. Shepard was worried about how they'd feed themselves on the return to the city, but nobody else seemed to worry about that - they were apparently all familiar with the wilderness and excellent at living off it. Even Bethany didn't seem as defeated as she had before - perhaps because they were finally heading home.

At least, that's what Shepard thought, right up until the point halfway through the day when Bethany collapsed.

Her sister was on her in an instant, as was Anders, but they seemed grim.

"What's wrong with her?" Shepard asked, "Why aren't you healing her, Anders?"

Shepard turned her omni-tool's light on Bethany - in the brighter light, it was clear that Bethany's veins were swollen and dark, her eyes glassy, almost dead looking. Shepard hoped to any god that might hear her that it looked worse than it was.

"It's...corruption. From the Darkspawn. There's only one known cure, and that's becoming a Gray Warden."

"So...make her one. You're one."

"The joining ritual takes a lot more than a few words and a cup - I don't even know what goes into preparing it!"

Anders sounded as if he'd been cornered. Hawke just seemed stricken.

Shepard rounded on the healer, "No more mumbo-jumbo, Anders. Whatever you've got to heal her, use it. Save the rituals for believers."

"You don't understand, Shepard... There's no magic to the ritual. It's an elixir that a person drinks, and if they survive, they're changed. Immune to the corruption. I don't know how to make it."

"I can't do this," Hawke said finally. Only then did Shepard see the knife in her hand - her small, black backup blade. _Hell no._

Shepard locked Hawke in a stasis field, and the woman's eyes widened in outrage. Shepard ignored her, her attention back on Anders.

"What aren't you telling us?"

"Shepard, there's nothing I can -"

"What. Are. You. Not. Telling. Us?" She repeated, stepping into Anders' personal space. She could see the glow from her implants reflected in his eyes. She willed him to flare up in response - the blue light that he called justice - but he looked...dejected.

"He thinks there are Wardens nearby... Don't you, Blondie?" Varric said behind Shepard. She glanced over her shoulder - the dwarf was nonchalantly slotting a bolt into Bianca.

"I-" Anders began. There was a twang, and a bolt quivered in the wall right next to Anders' head. Shepard could swear some of his hair fell onto his collar, cut in half.

"Take me to them. Shepard and Hawke will stay with Bethany."

Shepard nodded, and released Hawke. The woman looked shell shocked and stretched her muscles.

"We need to talk about that...trick of yours."

"Couldn't let you hurt her," Shepard said immediately.

"Not that - scaring the piss out of Anders without Justice popping up."

"Please," Bethany said, in a weak voice, "Tell us how you did that. Please? He gets so tiring..."

Shepard managed a small smile. Bethany would be fine. She had to be.

There had been Wardens. They'd taken Bethany. Shepard had no idea whether Bethany would survive or not, but the Wardens had failed to be intimidated or charmed into anything. It had been hard enough convincing them to take her at all - the only reason they had was because one of them had been a friend of Anders, and had vouched for anyone Anders did.

These Wardens were hard people - they reminded Shepard of some Spectres she'd met. She couldn't imagine Bethany as one of them, but... Whatever it takes. Nobody in the group seemed particularly enthusiastic after that, though. Shepard kept thinking of how she thought she should have scanned Bethany, that if she had noticed the problem earlier they could have stopped it. Anders - who must have had much the same thought - assured her that there was nothing to be done. Once the corruption has you, it has you. There's no way to cure it - some extremely talented are able to slow it, but that's it. You become a Warden or you die.

Shepard didn't like hearing that...but at the same time, there were always ailments that couldn't be cured, even with all their technology. And Shepard didn't know the limits of this...magic...these people employed. Perhaps advanced technology might be able to do something, but she couldn't be sure.

As to the magic, their experiences, those creatures... Shepard spent her days trying to make sense of it, and she just couldn't make everything fit. She'd started off thinking it was an Alliance or Salarian experiment, moved on to Cerberus when she started seeing things that might be explained by Reaper tech, and eventually she decided it could be the Reapers themselves - or, as she thought earlier, the Protheans. But some if it...

She'd scanned her rock-wraith samples again and again. There was nothing. Some of it seemed to be sandstone, some was harder stone. There were traces of various minerals, one stone was shot through with quartz, but all of it was just...rock. It was exactly the kind of rock you'd expect to find on a planet with moderate amounts of eezo. Except that it had been alive.

She was eventually forced to admit to herself that there was no way she would be able to explain this with science. Until and unless she gained some new knowledge, she'd have to try to wrap her mind around the concept of magic. And that meant... Fuck. Would she be able to reach the Normandy with magic?

They reached the surface in a matter of days, and the land provided, as promised. Varric was extremely adept at hunting, and Hawke had a knack for spotting edible herbs, fruits and mushrooms at a distance Shepard couldn't believe. The mushrooms, especially, became a staple of their diet.

Shepard was apprehensive at first. They didn't look like anything edible she recognized. But after the first, she decided she had a new favorite food. The taste may be rather bland, but she could not believe what it did for her energy levels. It was like edible adrenaline. Rather than consuming twice the amount the others did, she needed only eat a larger specimen of these deep mushrooms a day.

A few days on the road, in the sun, and the gloom left in the wake of losing Bethany seemed to lift, if just a little. Anders started questioning her about her biotics - they began comparing it to magic. The bastard seemed rather smug about her new attempt at an open-minded approach.

Unlike magic, biotics used up one's physical energy. A mage could completely wear himself out, and still run a marathon afterward - though with a headache. In theory, at least. In practice, few mages had that kind of physical prowess, because developing magical energy took as much time and effort, and you started with far less than anyone else.

Biotics seemed to conflict with magic, somewhat. When Shepard flared up, it interfered with Anders' ability to affect her, at least directly. Anders told her about how the spirit that now inhabited him, Justice, had held a different body before, and that it had managed to draw on magic-like power through physical energy. The Templars did likewise. Anders believed biotics had to be something akin to those two, which meant, much to her distaste, that Shepard would have to learn much more about the Templars.

Her conversations with Varric were more light-hearted. He really was a lot like Garrus and Joker - she could see him, standing on the other side of Joker's chair, swapping jokes and insults with the two of them. He loved hearing about her life before, and was constantly making notes. He, it seemed, was a writer.

They also talked about his explosives. He made them himself, and agreed to make some incendiary grenades for her on a regular basis, in exchange for her information on her life and the galaxy at large. Hawke got in on that conversation - while Varric was adept at making small explosives, Hawke apparently dealt with an alchemist who specialized in poisons and grenades. Hawke generally only made use of his poisons, but she promised to get Shepard in contact with him - his services, unlike Varric's, would come at a significant cost, but he had a great variety to offer.

At night, Shepard and Hawke would sit together, often in silence, sometimes making small talk, or comparing experiences, fighting styles, strategies. They'd take watch together, at night. The first time they woke Varric for his turn, and Hawke dropped her sleeping bag right next to Shepard and snuggled up, Shepard was in shock. But...Hawke had declared her family. Apparently Hawke had meant it. Shepard may be more used to being alone at night, but she was cut off from anything familiar, and Hawke's presence wasn't demanding. She was comforted by the other woman. Her sister, apparently.

Eventually, in the distance, they saw Kirkwall.

"Mother!" Hawke shouted, as she stumbled through the door under the weight of all her loot, "Uncle Gamlen! I need help!"

Of course, Gamlen, the weasel, would be the first to show up, and grab the shiniest objects. Hawke's mother, on the other hand, came in looking rather better dressed than usual, but her face was stern. She folded her arms across her breast, and had a letter dangling from one hand.

"You might be interested to know," she began - Hawke could hear the sob just under her voice, but whether from sadness or anger, she couldn't tell - "That your sister survived her joining. She's officially a Warden, now."

"That's good news," Hawke said after a beat - a Warden camp. There must have been a camp nearby - they did their ritual, and she wrote. That made sense.

"Your _sister_ is a Gray Warden," Hawke's mother said. She looked brittle. "She didn't want to go with you, she almost died, and now she's going to be risking her life daily and we'll probably never see her again!"

"Mother," Hawke said, "The blight is over. Bethany's handled worse than a few darkspawn stragglers, and that was without the support of the most renowned fighting force in Thedas. She's safe from the Templars with them, and... Well, what was I supposed to do?" Hawke snapped. She'd been holding back for days, and she just wanted to...

"I needed her. _I needed my sister!_ Without her, I probably wouldn't have made it out of those damned tunnels. We can get out of this death trap of a slum now. I did this for us! And so did she. I'm not going to disrespect that just because she got hurt. She might not have wanted to come, but she chose not to leave, and when it came to it, she saved all of us a few times over. So now, Maker forbid, she's part of an organisation that does just that for a living. A well respected organisation that gives her the protection we couldn't - which, in case you forgot, is why we always had to run and hide. She's free now, and so are we."

"It's just," but her mother couldn't finish. She cracked, and Hawke wrapped her arms around her.

"We're free, now, mother... Life will not hold us down."

As it turned out, Hawke's mother had gotten back the Amell titles and all the property that could be recovered. Which was mainly the family home, empty since Hawke had cleaned out the slavers. Unfortunately, the home was still rather run down, and there had been no money to repair it. Until now, at least.

A bright spot was that Gamlen had opted to stay in his little hovel, likely because Hawke's mother had insisted that he earn his keep if he moves in, just as she had been required to do.

An interesting time lay ahead - rebuilding the family fortune once Varric managed to find a good buyer for everything they had recovered would not be easy - but all that could wait. The first priority was a night at the hanged man.

"No shit, there we were," Varric was saying, with an eye on Merril - the elf, true to her nature, giggled like a madwoman. It was good to see she hadn't changed during their time away.

"The five of us against a rock wraith the size of that dragon we fought on Sundermount, and nobody could really hurt it. I mean, Bianca's a tough girl, but boulders? So we rely mainly on our mages - and Stars, if she insists on not being a mage," Hawke glanced at Shepard, who nodded, "to try and weaken it slowly, interfere with its energy somehow. But that was taking forever, and of course Sunshine would choose that moment to fall flat on her ass. Naturally the rocky bastard tries to crush her, and we're all just looking, because what can we do? But Stars runs up glowing like a bonfire, and - no shit - punches the air. And some glowing fist goes flying right up into the wraith's hand, and knocks it up against the ceiling. Some of the pillars actually fractured - so naturally we're all scrambling in case they collapse - but Stars here just goes toe to toe with the thing, like a pugilist, punching the air, and the glowing fists hit it. It tries to smack her, she throws up a glowing arm and blocks it, then punches it again. Head? Full of cracks in thirty seconds. It tries to kick her, and she just jumps up onto its foot, and smacks it right in the stones."

This last sent an appreciative chuckle around the table - except for Merril, who muttered "But how's that different from all the other times she smacked it's stones?"

Varric waited for the laughter to die down, and continued, "So now it goes down on one knee, and Stars swings up another punch from straight under it. Flips it ass over tits onto its back. She walks around, all calm - this thing's sparking and fizzing like crazy, must have been exhausted - and puts her hands on its head, starts squeezing. The thing roars and roars, but she just glows brighter, and next thing you know - crash! - its head collapses. So she walks over to us, dusting off her hands, and says 'You just can't win, rocky.'"

At this last, Shepard finally couldn't hold it anymore, "Oh come on, Varric! At least give me a better line!"

"If you thought it was such a bad line, then why would you say it at such a crucial moment?" Merril asked.

"It's not a true story, Merril," Aveline tried to explain.

"No, it is! You must have been distracted - Varric said 'no shit' twice. That means it's true."

"I just forgot what she really said, Daisy... Must have been all the excitement."

"So what did she really say?"

Varric grinned, "She said 'I've always wanted a rock garden.'"

"Come on!" Shepard groaned, as the rest of the team shared a laugh - even Fenris managed a chuckle. The night wore on, with the rest of the team mostly asking Shepard all the questions she'd already answered for Varric, Anders and Hawke. Nobody had believed Varric when he told them where Shepard came from, but the images Shepard kept on her omni-tool - and the fact that Hawke now also had one, that she could use - at least convinced them to give her the benefit of the doubt . The mention of ships that fly, and can even travel among stars, is predictably what had Isabela's interest. As the night wore on, she scooted ever closer to Shepard. Hawke could only sigh.

'Bela was so easily distracted.

For her part, Hawke spent most of the night in conversation with Varric, getting advice on which businesses to invest in as soon as they've got the loot sold. She needed a sustainable income, not just a quick fortune.

They did, eventually, manage to stumble home - Hawke was surprised to see Shepard going with Anders back to the clinic, she'd thought Isabela would have Shepard for the evening - and Hawke curled up alone for the first time in more than a year. She missed her sister. But Life would not keep her down.


End file.
